#like the infrared sight

[chiss-ticism]

Here's a random assortment of quotes I collected in relation to Thrawn, the Chiss Ascendancy, the Grysks, and the Unknown Regions that caught my eye during my read-through of their canon material. Admittedly, having finished typing them all out - they're mostly focused on the Ascendancy though the other topics of mentioned do get their own individual spotlights, even if they are a bit more dim Hardly would I consider this to be an exhaustive exploration into either Thrawn as a character or the Ascendancy as a society, but rather minute things that pinged my attention as I read HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD, I can't stress enough to try and give the books themselves a try before reading through these and, should you choose to continue otherwise, please read through them at your own risk:

Nine Ruling Families

Ufsa

Irizi

Dasklo

Clarr

Chaf

Plikh

Boadil

Mitth

Obbic

Chiss Family Ranks

Blood

Cousin

Ranking Distant

Trial Born

Merit Adoptive

Political Hierarchy

Patriarch - Head of the family.

Speaker - Head of the family's delegation to the Syndicure.

Syndic Prime - Head syndic.

Syndic - Member of the Syndicure, the main governmental body.

Patriel - handles family affairs on a planetary scale.

Councilor - Handles family affairs at a local level.

Aristocra - Mid-level member of one of the Nine Ruling Families.

Military Ranks

Supreme Admiral

Supreme General

Fleet Admiral

Senior General

Admiral

General

Mid Admiral

Mid General

Commodore

Senior Captain

Mid Captain

Junior Captain

Senior Commander

Mid Commander

Junior Commander

Lieutenant Commander

Lieutenant

Senior Warrior

Mid Warrior

Junior Warrior

- "Interesting offer," Anakin said. And now, finally, he was close enough. Taking a deep breath, he stretched out to the Force. The intruder wasn't human, though of course Anakin had already guessed that. He was near-human, though, like many other species in the Republic. But the texture of his mind was unlike anything Anakin had ever touched before. It was neat and well ordered, the patterns of though flowing smoothly and precisely in ways not unlike those of scientists or mathematicians. But the content of that flow, and the muted emotions accompanying it, were completely opaque. It was like a neat and precise array of unfamiliar numbers. (Thrawn Alliances, p. 36) -

"I understood travel into the Unknown Regions was difficult." "Indeed," Thrawn said. "The hyperlanes are few and not easy to traverse. But system jumps are possible if a traveler has sufficient time and is content with traversing limited distances." "And if one was not content with limited distances?" "One would need a careful study of the border," Thrawn said. "Millenia ago a set of chained supernova explosions throughout this particular region threw planet- and moon-sized masses at high speeds across the stars. The movements of those masses continually alter the hyperlanes, changing the paths in ways that are difficult to calculate. Other phenomena in other parts of the border created similar borders. The hyperlanes that remain largely intact are beset with other dangers." (A Conversation between Thrawn and Vader, Thrawn Alliances, p. 64) -

"You will first appreciate that this is among the most closely guarded secrets of the Chiss Ascendancy," he said. "As I noted when we first reached this region of space, there are few stable hyperlanes into and through the Unknown Regions. Because of this, most species stay close to their own systems, preferring to travel along shorter lanes and unwilling to take the time necessary for the much slower jump-by-jump travel." "But the Chiss do not wish to be so limited?" "Indeed not," Thrawn said, a hint of contempt creeping into his voice. "For all their pronouncements of non-interference in others' activities, the Aristocras have a deep desire to know what those activities consist of. Our scouts range far and wide, entering even into the parts of space once claimed by the Republic and now claimed by the Empire." He gestured. "As you well know.""

"I have been so informed by the Emperor," Vader said stiffly. Again, Thrawn was poking uncomfortably close to the edge. "Tell me about the children." "We do not have nav computers able to plot safe paths through the chaos of the Unknown Regions hyperspace," Thrawn said. "Nor do the Chiss produce appreciable numbers of Force-sensitives, though we call their gift Third Sight. But when such rare individuals are born, they come to us with but one ability, that of precognition." And suddenly Vader understood. The same ability that allowed him to peer into the future far enough to know when and where an attack was coming was being used by the Chiss to sense dangers looming ahead of a ship in time to avoid them. "They navigate your ships," he said. "Finding and mapping temporary hyperlanes even as they steer new paths along them." "Exactly," Thrawn waved a hand in the direction of the girls' quarters. "You can now appreciate the reason for our secrecy. An enemy wishing to duplicate our success cannot simply steal a computer or computer program. He must take rare and precious living beings from us." His eyes narrowed. "That cannot be allowed." (Thrawn Alliances, p. 352) -

There was a flicker in Thrawn's sense. Vader looked up, to see a small smile on his face. "Do you find this amusing, Admiral?" he challenged. "No, not at all, my lord," Thrawn hastened to assure him. "I was simply recalling a memory. I told you the Chiss call this talent Third Sight. What I hadn't yet spoken of is the title these navigators are given once they take their posts." "Which is?" "The Cheunh word is ozly-eschembo," Thrawn said. "In basic it translates to 'sky-walker.' " Another small smile. "You can imagine my momentary surprise when I first encountered General Anakin Skywalker." (Thrawn Alliances, p. 360) -

For another moment Thrawn remained silent. Then he took a slow, measured breath. "Yes," he said. "Though ironically such devices are of no use to our own people. Yes it was a Chiss shuttle you saw, my lord. But my message to the Grysks, and its importance to the Empire still remain." "Do they?" Vader countered. "Was your message to warn the Grysks away from the Empire? Or was it a warning to whatever group of Chiss are working with them that you are aware of their presence?" Thrawn smiled faintly. But Vader could sense the pain behind the smile. "Why can it not be both?" "Was it both?" Thrawn turned away. "There were stirrings of political conflict when I left my people for the Empire those many years ago," he said. "I assumed the Aristocras would settle their differences, as they have so many times before. This time, perhaps they could not. Or perhaps the Grysks have made deeper inroads into our culture than I'd hoped." Vader gazed at the Chiss, feeling the dark irony deep within him. "So you who have never hidden your contempt for the Republic's handling of the Clone Wars now stand on the edge of your own civil war?" "Or have already taken our first steps into it," Thrawn said. "If one side is already under the control of the Grysks..." He shook his head. "Your earlier though was perhaps closer to the mark than you knew. Perhaps the true purpose of closing the border is to prevent me from bringing the Empire against them." (Thrawn Alliances, p. 444) -

"Acknowledged," Eli called back, mentally rolling his eyes. The majority of Chiss names were composed of multiple syllables in three distinct parts, the first of which identified the person's family, the second of which was the given name, and the third of which reflected some social factor Eli hadn't yet figured out. Since using multisyllable titles all the time could seriously bog down conversations -and worse, timely military orders- the normal convention was to use core names for everything except in the most formal situations. (Thrawn Treason, p. 55) -

He turned, fixing her with such an intense look that she reflexively drew back a little. "What's happened to our capital, Ziara?" "The same thing that happened to the whole planet," Ziara said quietly. "I'm sorry - I shouldn't have done that to you, but you're not supposed to know." "To know what? That the people of Csilla are gone?" "Oh, they're not gone," she said. "Well, yes, most of them are, but the big exodus happened over a thousand years ago. What they taught you in school about how the changes in the sun's output and the slow freezing of the surface forced the population of Csilla underground is mostly true. What the histories leave out is that the numbers that moved below were a far cry from the four billion who'd been living here at the time." "Where did they go?" "Other planets," Ziara said. "Mostly Rentor, Avidich, and Sarvchi. The Syndicure and fleet headquarters were kept here, along with a lot of cargo and merchant facilities. Some of the families moved their homesteads to worlds where they already had strong presences, but most didn't want to leave Csilla entirely." "They also moved underground?" "Right," Ziara said. "My family's new homestead - well, new as of a thousand years ago - is in a huge cavern about two kilometers below the surface. Still on our same land, of course. The Irizi are a bit obsessive about territory and history." "So how many people actually live on Csilla?" "Sixty or seventy million," Ziara said. "Though all of the official records put the number at eight billion. " She waved at the city around them. "All of this is just for show." "For whom?" "Our visitors," she said. "Our alien trading partners." She felt her throat tighten. "Our enemies." "So a few continue to live aboveground to create the illusion," Thrawn murmured. "Light and heat are also maintained. Tube cars continue to travel across the remaining cities, pretending to be the traffic of a thriving population." He looked at Ziara . "I presume that on the far side our tube will descend into one of the tunnels?" She nodded. "There are a few hundred people in Csaplar at any given time. They're rotated out frequently so they don't have to put up with the conditions up here for very long. The rest of the city - the real city- is spread out in caverns, mostly concentrated around the Syndicure complex. More illusion for our diplomatic visitors." "And of course, most civilian visitors and merchants stay close to one of the spaceports," Thrawn said, nodding. "The activity there and round the government complex disguises the emptiness of the rest of the city. (Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising, p. 247) -

Thalias sighed. So embarrassing... "I was going to say you're ten now," she said. "And that reminded me that I missed your starday. I'm so sorry. With all that was going on last month, I just totally forgot it." "It's okay," Che'ri said, hunching her shoulders. Her voice was quiet, and Thalias could hear the distant hurt beneath it. "It's not like I remember being taken to the skylight to see my first star. And, you know. Parties and treasure-puzzle poems are mostly for little kids." (Starday Celebrations, Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good p. 25) -

"I'm currently on a wandering year, Councilor Lakuviv," Yoponek said. "I'm traveling the Ascendancy, seeking knowledge and experience outside the classroom walls." "Ah," Lakuviv said, nodding. Wandering years were a staple of some families: a gap year after basic schooling when a young person could travel and learn, meditate and self-examine, before returning to advanced schooling or other job training. Proponents of the program claimed it helped young people better decide their goals and talents in order to avoid false starts in future studies. Critics saw it as a waste of parental money, with little evidence that it did anything but allow the midager to wallow in an extended period of self-indulgent laziness. Cynics said its true purpose was to get them out form underfoot during what was traditionally the most pompous and condescending time in their lives. (Wandering Years & "Midagers", Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good p. 57)

- Sky-walker Bet'nih was at the navigation station, with Caregiver Soomret standing behind her. Their presence meant no non-bridge personnel were permitted. (Thrawn Ascendancy, Greater Good: p. 294) -

Jump to a system. Come out of hyperspace. Confirm position. Move through space-normal to the departure point necessary to line up for the next jump. Recheck possible hyperspace anomalies between jump points. Jump to the next point on the list, which was seldom more than five or six star systems away. Come out of hyperspace. Repeat.

(a description of jump-by-jump travel, Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, p. 332) -

"Again, Pathfinder, calm yourself," Jixtus said, more severely this time. "The Grysks lay blame only where it's deserved, and only on those who fail us. Each of our servants is responsible solely for his own decisions and actions, not for another's" "Yes, sir," Qilori said, feeling his winglets and his tension subsiding. He'd never heard of a species by that name. Or a faction, if that's what they were. Or a combine, or a gang, or something else entirely. A name by itself really didn't contain much information. (Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, p. 404) - Many years ago, when Senior Captain Xodlak'in'daro first joined the Expansionary Defense Fleet, there had been an elaborate ceremony to celebrate her rematching form her birth family to the Xodlak family. Lakinda didn't remember much about the ritual except that it was big and flashy and completely overwhelmed her simple commoner tastes. ... Of all the duties foisted on low-ranking family members, Aristocra Mitth'ras'safis had often heard the task of welcoming new merit adoptives to their formal rematching dinner was one of the worst. The newcomers were either highly skilled additions to the Mitth, in which case they tended to have an overblown opinion of themselves and their value; or they were freshly initiated into the Ascendancy military. Nearly all of the blood, cousins, and ranking distants opted out of reception duty, leaving most of the burden to fall on Trial-borns and other merit adoptives, none of whom had enough pull to avoid it. (Rematching Parties, Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil, p. 35 & 39) -

The Universal Analysis Group on Sposia was the clearinghouse where all alien artifacts and technology collected by the Ascendancy were taken to be studied. Most of the historical pieces eventually went to museums or art collections, while most of the technological items proved too damaged or fragmentary to be of any use and were either cataloged into storage chambers or simply destroyed. But every so often a piece of technology was found that was complete enough to be studied. Those rare items were taken to a special underground complex where teams of scientists and techs worked painstakingly to coax out their secrets. And occasionally - very occasionally- one of those was deemed of military value and moved to Vault Four. (Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil, p. 53) -

"You're absolutely sure?" Thalias pressed again, smiling to herself. As the Springhawk's only two civilians, she and Che'ri were supposedly allowed to wear whatever clothing they liked on duty. (Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil p. 63) -

But not just any warship. This craft was huge: three, possibly even four times bigger than the Whetstone. The bow bristled with clusters of spectrum lasers, with more lasers and missle tubes pointed toward the Kiljis from the massive weapons shoulders. Lines of running lights marked the flanks and dorsal spine, accenting the warship length and sheer presence. (A description of a Grysk Shatter-class WarMaster. Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil p. 88) -

Millennia ago, the Chiss had traveled extensively in Lesser Space, where legends said the inhabitants used computerized machines to chart their way between the stars. (Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil, p. 124) -

[nasa]

Sakura to Supernova

This rare sight is a super-bright, massive Wolf-Rayet star. Calling forth the ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms, the Wolf-Rayet phase is a fleeting stage that only some stars go through soon before they explode.

The star, WR 124, is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns worth of material – so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast is of great interest to astronomers for multiple reasons. Dust shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together, including the building blocks of life on Earth.

Stars like WR 124 also help astronomers understand the early history of the universe. Similar dying stars first seeded the young universe with heavy elements forged in their cores – elements that are now common in the current era, including on Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope opens up new possibilities for studying details in cosmic dust, which is best observed in infrared wavelengths of light. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera balances the brightness of WR 124’s stellar core and the knotty details in the fainter surrounding gas. The telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument reveals the clumpy structure of the gas and dust nebula of the ejected material now surrounding the star.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[mothiepixie]

Okay, so my father was a welder (ironworker specifically)... so how would you gauge Blue's vision as of now? There's of course all the other long-term health hazards- and the fact that he's a Skeleton monster, but is there a difference?

Blue being a monster doesn't always have the same health hazards that affect humans. His eyes are not made of tissues, so UV or infrared light wouldn't burn in the same way it does a human.

The magic that makes up his eyelights may cause his eye lights to dim over time due to long exposure and he can still be blinded temporarily from flashes of light, but his eyelights would not suffer burns, just weaken. Blue's sight is okayish at the moment since he does take extra precautions; wearing the appropriate glasses with the right shade range per the type of work he's performing.

Fumes and gasses may not give him cancer or kill the type of monster he is, but it could affect the magic that makes up his body/bones. Long exposure could possibly cause damage to his bone mass and joints. His bones could even suffer or mimic a condition similar to skeletal fluorosis, a bone disease caused by long exposure of fluoride that weakens bones or even causes them to warp.

The biggest factor Blue will have to be more careful of in present time is burns, crushing fingers/limbs, or electrical shock.

Electrical shock is a huge hazard and can disrupt the stabilization of his magic; knocking him out cold similar to how a human would from being electrocuted. The heat can disrupt and strip the magic from his bones, retreating into his soul leaving his bones vulnerable to electrical burns and if not careful can cause fusion of his joints. Worst case scenario is that the area is burnt beyond saving and, depending how hot or deep, will dust away (like an amputation.)

Blue has suffered many injuries since he started welding, and even once electrocuted himself so bad that it landed him in the hospital. Scared the dickens outta Motti and Stretch.

[space-mango-company]

Stranger | Chapter 3

Chapter Links: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

TW: none for this one, I think

Tags: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Atreides!Reader, Arranged Marriage, Eventual Smut, POV Second Person, No use of y/n, Original Characters, Canon What Canon

Word Count: 1.4k

A/N: Unedited for now! Holy moly, sorry for taking so long on this one. I was kinda drowning in uni work the past week. The next chapter should come sooner, I hope. Also just wanted to say thank you so much to those who take the time to comment!! I really really appreciate the kind words. You guys are super sweet. Mwa mwa.

The inky black fireworks exploded in the distance as you were led back into the underground chambers of the arena. Your eyes are relieved to escape the infrared sun. Heavy doors open for you once more. The na-Baron stands, chest exposed, skin slick with sweat under the artificial light. His blown-out eyes hone in on you as you enter. He makes his way to you holding the blood-stained handkerchief.

"Did you enjoy the show, my lady?" His chest heaves and you feel his heavy breaths as he leans into your ear, voice even more raspy, "Aren't you something, little hawk."

He holds the cloth up as if giving it to you but when you reach for the handkerchief he snatches it away.

You sigh and lift your veil, a sweet smile plastered on your face, "A most impressive demonstration, na-Baron. You are as formidable as they say."

Feyd-Rautha takes a moment to scan your face. He doesn't know what your game is but he wants to play.

His breathing has settled. He raises a hand to reach for your cheek but you move past him. You walk towards a table displaying knives laid over a cloth. You pick one up to examine. The blades remain uncleaned, the blood from earlier in the day already beginning to dry. You sense they will be kept that way.

"You have good form. Clean, precise," you say, holding the dagger in a reverse grip, edge out. "You enjoy it, don't you?"

From behind, you feel Feyd-Rautha close the distance between you once again.

"Perhaps you enjoy it a little too much," you turn to him, "I'm sure you let him disarm you on purpose. For the show."

Feyd-Rautha tilts his head and allows himself a small smile. "You should return to the fortress, my lady. I have duties to attend to," he touches your armed hand and gently takes the knife from you, "and my uncle would like to see you."

Despite being shielded from the black sun, you elect to keep your veil for your lunch with the Baron. You excuse the chill running down your spine as the coldness of the high, stony walls of Fortress Harko as Iassa escorts you to the dining hall. Iassa kept her head bowed, you noticed, hands folded in front of her. She didn't need to look ahead to know the way.

When you arrive, large doors open to the sight of the Baron floating at the head of the table. There was only one other seat at the side of the table a few feet from him. Despite that, there was a full spread of food which his servants were already feeding him.

You had done your best to avoid the Baron in your short time here, but it seems this meeting was inevitable.

"Lady Atreides," his eyes turn toward you lazily. "Come. Eat."

"Good afternoon, Baron," you curtsy as you enter. Iassa bows to you and waits outside. You take your seat, "will it only be us, my lord? This seems a lavish spread for only two people."

"Are you calling me a glutton, girl?" he spats.

Your heart takes a beat as you try not to stare at his grotesquely large body.

"We are Harkonnen," his husky laugh rings through the room. "We may lavish as much as we please."

You exhale the breath you were holding and let out a small laugh. Of course. They were the richest house in the Landsraad. The Harkonnens must be accustomed to excess.

"Soon, child, you will be Harkonnen as well," he says in that gravelly voice that is so uncomfortably similar to Feyd-Rautha's. "Is that what you want?"

The question takes you aback. No one has ever asked you this question before. This betrothal has been decided for so long, you've never even thought to ask the question yourself. It was all you'd known. Your duty. You had never bothered to imagine what your life would have been if you weren't destined to marry the Harkonnen heir.

You regain your composure, "Baron, it is my honor to unite our Great-"

"Drop the act, child!" he barks. "Perhaps you fear me, but if you are to become 'family', I will not have the patience for charades. Speak plainly. Do you want to marry my nephew?"

This has been a most unusual exchange. At least compared to what you're used to. Always taught to be sweet and pleasant. You suppose you had nothing to lose, considering the Baron killing you would start an all-out war. You take a moment to think, and then a deep breath.

"I am a woman, dear Baron. There is not much for me in this life. Indeed, tales of your house's savagery are well-known throughout the systems, and in Caladan more than most. But had I not been betrothed to your nephew, I would only be married off to some other lord or count or whatever, gentler than Feyd-Rautha they may be," you swallow. "Perhaps, I could have been trained a Bene Gesserit sister. However, to become the wife of the heir to one of the most powerful houses in the known universe—there are worse fates."

The Baron stares, seemingly satisfied with your answer. He waves his servants away. "Eat, child. Waste not the food of one of the most powerful houses in the known universe."

He begins to glide towards the doors on his side of the hall and his servants scurry to lay down their forks and follow after him.

You look to the remaining servants in the dining hall, then to the mounds of food on the table. Your first dinner on Giedi Prime had felt suffocating with all the nobles around and Feyd-Rautha smugly breathing down your neck. You pile your plate high.

In your quarters, Iassa helps you out of your clothes and into a warm bath. You don't wait for her and begin scrubbing your skin with a rag yourself. Between the heat from the morning gladiator fights and your tense conversation with the Baron, you were happy to wash the sweat off your body.

"Is this alright, my lady?" Iassa is trying to wash your hair with the lightest touch, "Does it hurt you?"

"No, no. It's quite alright." You take over and she moves to begin scrubbing your legs.

You're grateful you brought bottles of your own hair soaps. You notice Iassa is intently observing how you washed your hair and you appreciate her wanting to learn. Although, you surmise she might not have a choice. Her black choker seems to stand out even more against her pale skin.

"How was your day, Iassa?" you say as you lather your hair.

She pauses in confusion. "It was quite alright, my lady," her voice is soft and polite.

"Do they treat you well?" you knew it was a futile question.

"I am property of House Harkonnen, my lady," she says as she pours more water into the grey stone bath, "I am treated appropriately."

"Yes, but do you mean appropriately as in well or appropriately as in—" your desperate attempt to make a friend seems to be slipping through your fingers. You let out an exasperated sigh, "I know it's only been a few days but, do I treat you well, Iassa?"

She takes a moment and smiles up at you, "My lady has been most gracious." You see in her eyes she means it.

"You were right about the na-Baron," you say, "he is formidable indeed."

"I'm pleased my lady was impressed," she wraps a robe around you as you rise from the bath.

"Well, I don't know about impressed," you say as you step out, "he is a decent fighter, certainly. Perhaps it is a difference in the fighting styles of our worlds."

After helping you dress, Iassa bows and leaves you to retire. Her grey robes flowing behind her.

Once alone, you find your father's dagger in your belongings. The Baron's earlier question comes back to you. Is that what you want? To marry Fayd-Rautha? That night, you sleep clutching the knife close to your heart.

When you awake the following morning, you are greeted by a servant girl bringing you breakfast.

"Where is Iassa?" you ask.

"She has been relieved, my lady," the girl looks even younger than Iassa, "I am Zora."

Your brow furrows, "What does that mean, 'relieved'?"

When Zora remains silent, you get up from the bed.

On the dark grey of your vanity, you notice a black strip of leather. A choker identical to your new servant's but it was unmistakable who it belonged to. Your mind ran through the whys and your blood began to boil.

Chapter Links: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

Taglist: @torchbearerkyle @austinswhitewolf @dreamlandcreations @emeraldsgirl @strawberryfieldsforevermore @bornslippys @vexis-world @aoi-targaryen @alexandrainlove

[seeds-and-sins]

Four Letter Word - Soulmate AU Part Three

Pairing: Homelander x Reader

Rating: M (BAD WORDS, abusive themes, Homelander-esque expectations)

Description: Homelander and you are soulmates, but you can't stand the way he treats you anymore.

Part Two

Tagged: @midnightprincess18

Hiding things from Homelander was like hiding warm bodies from an infrared. He could see the lie-or just a fragment of one-from hundreds of miles away, smell it on you the moment you entered the building, hear the nervous tremble in your voice that was near undetectable to average human ears. You had become well adjusted to his capabilities. Granted, surprises or any sort of secrets were prohibited. You tried to plan a birthday party for John one time and the response was-well-needless to say, he wasn't pleased. So, you learned to keep absolutely transparent with the Homelander on everything; all of his questions were answered with the full truth, any feeling or hint of uncertainty was made known to him. It was impossible that it not be.

In almost every capacity, Homelander was the perfect lover. He knew exactly what you needed when you needed it. He could detect the faintest skip in your heart rate, the sweat beading on your brow, the scent of arousal. He was always attentive, asking about you, doting on you, complimenting you. In this regard, he never failed to please you. However, as far as never getting a second away from his unrelenting and ravenous nosy self, that was slowly starting to get to you.

The tensions started after he had admitted, on live television, before the entire planet, that you were his soulmate. Even then, when you told him everything was fine, he knew otherwise. He eventually apologized for his transgressions against you that day, but it didn't help the fact that you were now the second most mentioned person on the news. From that point forward, something was off. And it was only getting worse with each passing day.

John was keeping something from you, that was for certain, but the total transparency you offered him was never quite reciprocated. You asked him about it, but he never cared to give you a direct answer or at least an answer that was truthful.

Then, Translucent went missing, John told you.

Then next, Starlight, the newest member of the Seven, was admitting a sexual assault on national television. The Deep was suspect to dozens of other accusations that followed.

Then, A-Train was never around, and anytime you ran into him in the hallway, he was sweating profusely and struggling to catch his breath.

"I'm fine!" A-Train obviously wasn't fine.

And Black Noir never had any drama, but with the way things were going you wondered if you just hadn't found out what was wrong with him yet. Because then you found out that Maeve's alcoholism and depression had been keeping her hauled away in her penthouse suite.

Meanwhile, John, Homelander, your lover, was on the television every other day, ranting and raving about things that made your blood go cold. First, with that plane crash. Then, the news interviews gone wrong.

The icing on the cake was when a video leaked on the web and, soon, the news, depicting the possibility of super humans existing in other countries, with deadly intentions.

Maybe you worked too much. If you had been around more often, you would know about what was going on. Maybe if you had been with him more, he would have spoken to you sooner. Instead, all of the distant looks, empty kisses and promises, it built up in your very being, your soul. Until you couldn't take it any longer. You were hurt.

You stormed to the Vought meeting room, where Homelander stood at the far end of the table. The leftover, broken members of a team you once respected sat around that table: Starlight, Maeve, Noir, A-Train. You didn't care who was there. You didn't care who was listening. You needed to let everything out. From the edge of your sight, you noticed Ashley in the corner. The room was already thick with discomfort, but when you walked in, it intensified.

John's cape flicked as he turned to face you, those gorgeous blue eyes looking at you with confusion, the fragile New York skyline laid out in the scenic view behind him. You didn't think you had the courage to do it until you saw him. He spoke your name, that lackluster smile pulling his lips, he recovered his surprise, greeted you as if he hadn't been avoiding you for nearly a month.

"I'm leaving you." You said, confident, sure, no hint of any lie in that tone. John's smile fell, you saw A-Train's eyes bulge and he tensed up. The whole room knew what he was capable of. At any point in time, he could go off and destroy everything in his path. Maeve's eyes darted back and forth, between John and you, she was preparing herself for the worst.

"Okayyy, maybe we should-" Ashley's awkward attempt at finding a solution was thwarted by a stern hiss from between Homelander's clenched teeth.

"No. You're not." He shot back.

"Yes. I am." Tears brimmed the corners of your eyes, "I care about you. I love you so much..." You spent everything in you not to cry. "But you are a horrible fuckin' person, John. Horrible." Even his shock was evident at that utterance. You could hear his gloves squeak from the force of his fists clenching, all the way at the other side of the room. "I can't do it anymore." You inhaled a deep breath, glancing around the room at the stunned and horrified expressions of Homelander's teammates and then you left.

As soon as you disappeared from the room, he was hunching forward over the table. There was a harsh silence as everyone tried to figure out what would happen next. Would he rip his way through the building? Would he start killing people one by one? Would he go on a rampage in the city? The only one to have broken up with Homelander was Maeve and it appeared to be a mutual decision at the time. And Maeve wasn't his soulmate, the idea of bonded soulmates ever so much as considering a breakup was foreign to the world. They were either together, or never together, that was it. Homelander stood to his full height, he lifted his chin.

"What were we talking about?" He said through clenched teeth, the utterance was rough and husky, strained, everyone physically leaned away in their seats.

"Um-uh-um-I think-"

"Starlight." A-Train shot out, "We were talking about Starlight." Starlight blinked, quietly looking around the table for any sort of protection as Homelander's burning rage redirected itself back to the topic at hand.

After that meeting, Homelander barreled out of the room and went looking for you. He was a fuming mess. No one in the hallway dared to get in his way.

How dare you? He was nothing but good to you. How fuckin' dare you?

He was preparing his entire rant on the way to his penthouse, but when he got there it was empty. He frantically searched with his x-ray vision, then he stomped into the shared room and noticed that all of your clothes were absent from the dresser.

He wasn't freaking out.

No.

He wasn't-

Homelander flew through the windows of his penthouse, glass exploded outward from his exit. He went oil a rage through the city, searching for you. Car alarms were going off, people were staring at the sky as sonic booms bounced around from the speeds he was going. He searched around the tower, then he searched the streets near the tower. You weren't in the subways.

His chest was tight, he couldn't find you anywhere.

You were serious! You left him!

Homelander couldn't let this happen. John couldn't let this happen. He could already feel his control slipping, bit by bit. For so long, he relied on you to keep him together. You made him feel human. You reminded him that he was not just a superhero, or a celebrity... Or a god. You reminded him that he had a soul.

He swiftly flew back to the tower. At this point, everyone was on alert. He was charging through the hallways in long and hard strides. People were ducking into rooms, hiding behind planters, pushing themselves as far up against the walls as they could possibly go. He stopped at the surveillance room. Before entering, he could hear the friendly chirping and the clicking away of computer keys. As soon as he was spotted, the room of employees went drop dead silent.

Homelander didn't care who's day he ruined, he randomly picked someone.

"You. Search everywhere." He commanded lowly, gripping the head of their seat so tight that the chair might break completely. "I'm looking for my soulmate." He watched the screen as the frightened employee rushed to work. The blue glow made the tears brimming in his eyes glisten.

He was almost on that edge. He was almost gone. He didn't know what he would do without you.

"John..." A calm and reassuring voice sounded at his side. He stood tall and his head darted in their direction. It was none other than Madelyn Stillwell. "What's wrong? Talk to me." Homelander felt suffocated, he felt like he couldn't breath.

"She's gone." He choked out, sniffling to keep the snot inside his nose. "She left me." Madelyn appeared sympathetic, John wanted to convulse in disgust when she placed a hand on his shoulder. The only person he wanted to touch him was you. Perhaps Stillwell had a physical hold on him before he found out your existence, but that was long ago. Now, he had a soulmate. He had a soulmate that loved him.

"Why even bother, John?" She reasoned, sending him a sad smile. "Why would you want to be around someone that doesn't want to be around you?" Homelander stepped from her reach and she visibly frowned.

"She does want to be around me. She's just confused."

"Maybe this is for the best."

"This is ridiculous!" He shoved the employee away and began agressively typing at the keys, pulling every traffic camera, security camera, every snap photo in the subways, every credit transactions under your name. He found nothing. He didn't understand. Vought had access to some of the most deeply integrated data bases in the world and he still couldn't find her.

"John, maybe she'll come back. If she misses you as much as you miss her." Homelander fled the room, leaving behind a disoriented employee and an annoyed Stillwell.

That night, Homelander stood at the rooftop of Vought tower. It was where he had met you, it was where you both exchanged your first words. He pressed his hand over that same burning phrase that rested on his chest and he stared into the distance. Expression completely devoid of emotion, not a single tear more.

Homelander had fallen off completely.

...

This was agonizing. You thought you could take it, but it was only getting worse. You felt sick, you could barely move without being in pain. Maybe you were just going through a bout of depression. Maybe it would wear off with time. You didn't know for sure. What you did know was that you couldn't keep driving. So, after a few days on the road, sleeping intermittently in the car, you found a motel in Nevada.

You figured you needed to rest someplace that wasn't the front or back seat of a car. The motel was small. It appeared to only have about ten rooms in total. The old woman at the front desk was kind and she didn't ask questions. Every time you had stopped for gas or went through a drive-thru, someone recognized you.

"You're Homelander's Soulmate." They would state in awe, and then they would proceed to ask you every question they could think of about Homelander. What's his favorite food? Is he a good boyfriend? Do you love him? Are you guys going to get married? Are you going to have kids? And maybe that's why everything hurt so bad. The bond between soulmates went beyond the stars, connected people that were hundreds of miles apart. All that you felt away from Homelander was pain. Horrible, excruciating, blistering pain.

The moment you entered your room, you showered and changed into a comfortable pair of clothes. Then, you laid on the bed and cried. You cried for what must had been hours. This routine proceeded for the next few days. You didn't eat, you barely slept, and you just laid there. It was like death. You felt like you were dying. Your thoughts were filled with Homelander. He didn't want you. He didn't ask for a soulmate. He could have done without.

The words on your wrist, meant nothing anymore. After meeting John, you began looking at them with a fondness, your heart would swell. Now, they haunted you.

Well, you're a fuckin' idiot.

Yeah, you were.

After a week of hell, you heard several knocks at the door. You didn't know who it could possibly be. It took all of the energy you had left to get up and answer it. You looked like how you felt, a mess. You were wearing baggy sweat pants and a tank top, nothing else. You didn't even have the energy to put a bra on. Imagine your surprise when you answered the door and it wasthe old lady that owned the motel. She had a sickeningly sweet smirk on her face, that was damn near uncomfortable, and she had a tray of cookies in her hands. Your favorite cookies. How was that even possible?

"Thought I'd check in on you, deary, made you some cookies." Your eyes narrowed at her, they were already squinted from the bright light blaring in from behind her.

"Um..." This woman went from not giving two shits who you were, to checking in on you. You were suspicious.

Suspicious of what? She was an old lady. Harmless. It's not like Homelander was hiding under that wrinkly face.

"Thank you." You replied in a tired voice. Geez, was that you talking?

"May I come in?" You bit your bottom lip, anxiously glancing behind you.

"Okay." You moved out of the way enough for her to squeeze in. You were certian the room was a mess. You hadn't had the energy to pick up after yourself, but the good news was there was no food anywhere because you weren't eating. "Sorry, I just um-"

"You're going through Soulmate Seperation. It's a brutal thing. I went through it when I was your age." You squinted at her, cocked your head in confusion.

"I'm sorry..." You crossed your arms. "How did you know-I mean-"

"Like I said, my dear, I went through the same thing." She sat down on the edge of the bed, placing the tray beside her. "Come. Sit. Have a cookie." You blinked between the tray and her, then shut the door and followed her requests.

"How did you get through it?" Your words came out as a whisper as you eyed the cookie in hand, a tear slowlt trickled down your cheek.

"Well, I had to go back to them eventually. It hurt too bad. But I realized that we could work things out."

"I mean..." You sniffled, then took a giant bite. "He's perfect. But he doesn't love me."

"I'm sure he's obsessed with you." This cookie was really freaking good right now. And you were salivating for more. You hadn't eaten in days.

"He barely noticed me until I told him I was done with him."

"Remember. He's going through the same thing you are right now."

"You think?"

"Absolutely." You frowned at the thought. You didn't want him to hurt. You didn't want to only enhance the burden that this must be on him.

"Eat some more cookies, honey."

And you did.

...

One second you were eating cookies, the next second you were passed out on the bed. The old woman's body morphed into that of an overweight middle aged man. He picked up the phone and made a call.

Moments later, a team came in to collect your unconscious body and you were being taken away.

When you woke up, you were surrounded by a familiar smell, fresh pine, rain, it nearly made you cry as you gripped the sheets in closed fists.

John.

This was your bed. His bed.

Your eyes fluttered open and you were staring at a piece of paper, and written on that paper was a scribbled message.

Answer the phone.

You squinted at the red lettering, your vision blurring in and out of focus.

Then, as if on a cue, a phone began to vibrate. It was next to the note on the end table. You sat upright, glancing around at what used to be your bedroom, your home. Your face felt wet, tears were sliding down your cheeks. You shoved the covers off of you and reached for the phone. The caller ID was from an unknown number. You gulped, stared uneasily at the golden double doors leading into the bedroom. Everything was just as you had left it. It was as if you had never even left. You felt ana che in your chest at the thoughg.

Why were you even here?

How did you get here?

The vibrating phone drew your attention again. The buzzing stopped. You snatched the phone with lightening speed and stared as the missed call appeared on the screen. Not even a few seconds later the number appeared again and the phone shook in your hand like a storm in a bottle.

You looked around one more time, eyes landing on the message in red ink.

You hit the button and brought the phone to your ear.

There was a sigh on the other end, the person cleared their throat, before speaking your name.

Your eyes darted around.

"Y-Yes."

"For security's sake, I'm not going to inform you who I am, let's just say I am someone higher up on the chain."

"Vought's chain?" He didn't answer you.

"We don't have much time. Homelander is to arrive back from a press conferance in an hour. In that time, I suggest you clean yourself up. We have taken the liberty of returning your personal items to their former places-"

"Who are you?" You fumed, rising from the bed. You stormed over to the dresser and, in fact, found that the drawers were filled with your clothes. "So what, I can't make my own fuckin' decisions, now?"

"Not when those decisions pertain to Homelander."

"My choice has nothing to do with him."

"Respectfully, your choice nearly threatened all of humanity." You shook your head.

"I'm not that important to him." There was a sigh again and you wanted to scream. This man had some audacity, whoever he was.

"You believe whatever you want, but in the meantime you'll make up with Homelander and play nice. Pretty soon you'll be free of this burden..." Your heart jumped into your throat and you felt like your breath had been sucked from you completely. "And at that time, Vought will compensate you for your troubles."

"What do you mean burden?" You inhaled sharply, "Do you-Do you-Are you saying you can remove our soulmate marks? Are you saying that you can seperate soulmates?" He didn't answer you again. Grief hit you like a freight train, it was overwhelming.

"You have less than an hour. If you try to run away again, we will have to take stricter measures. Am I clear?" You didn't answer, still caught in your thoughts over the harsh reality that was just dealt to you. Remove soulmates?! No. No, no, no. You didn't want that. You never wanted that. You couldn't even imagine what...

"Don't-" The line hung up on the other end. You went frantic. You tried to dial the number back. It never rung, it went dead. "No. No. No." You dialed the number again. It never rung. It went dead. "Please." You cried, bringing the back of your hand to your forehead, you stared at the ground in disbelief.

Could they take him from you?

Isn't that what you wanted?

Didn't you want to run away from all this?

No. Not like that.

To be seperated from Homelander, for eternity. To have a piece of your soul ripped from you? You would rather than die. You rather be sucked into an abyss of nothingness before you allowed that to happen.

You put the phone down and rushed to get ready for Homelander's arrival.

...

"If she puts me on the spot like that again, Ashley, I am going to rip her fuckin' head off?!"

"Okay, okay, let's slow down. I'll talk to her okay? There's no need for that." Homelander halted in his furious step and faced Ashley, who came to an uneasy stop on her heels. He pointed a finger in her face and snarled.

"You better, or-" He paused, the anger immediately falling from his expression. His eyebrows furrowed and then he stood a little taller.

"I'm sorry. So sorry. I promise I'll fix this. I-"

"Shut up." Homelander growled lowly, his head twisted and he stared toward the closed bedroom doors. "Get the fuck out." He commanded, Ashley didn't waste time and she booked it out of the pemthouse. John straightened, his eyes glistened and he faced the bedroom doors.

His boots thumped against the marble floor, one after the other. Before he made it to the doors, you pulled the doors back and revealed yourself. He flinched away as if he had been stung, neck craning his head back, his jaw went tight. You weaved your fingers out in front of you and stood in quiet eith your head bowed. You had showered, brushed your teeth, put on perfume, pretty much anything to make yourself look far more presentable than you were.

You didn't know what to say. All you knew was that you wanted to rush into his arms as soon as you saw him. The feeling was suffocating, being so far apart for so long, seeing him and still not being able to touch him.

You wished you hadn't ever left.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was strained and he was intently keeping himself out of arms reach. He looked fine, unmarred by any feeling, aside from irritation. It was as if the pain and suffering that your seperation had caused in you, had done nothing to him. He was invincible physically, mentally, and emotionally. He was Homelander.

You lifted your gaze to his and he rolled his eyes to look away.

"I missed you." You answered in a mere whisper, swallowing down the thickness in your throat. He crossed his arms, his back turned to you for a moment before he twisted and pointed at you.

"You've got some nerve coming back here, thinking I would take you back after what you did." You wiped a few stray tears, held your chin up.

"I had my reasons for leaving."

"Oh yeah? Because I'm what? A horrible fuckin' person?! Do you remember that?!" You blinked at him, chewing on your bottom lip. "I wouldn't forget it." He crossed his arms again, body rigid and straight. He looked so composed. He was more angry than hurt. But perhaps, you hoped he was angry because he was hurt.

"John..." You began, maybe if you had just told him your feelings before none of this would have happened. You couldn't lose him. That wasn't happening. That wasn't an option. You loved him too much. "I thought that-"

"Leave." He sternly shot out, interrupting you, like he always did before, never giving you a chance to speak.

"No." You cried, unable to hold your tamed expression. He closed in on you like a lion to it's prey.

"Yes." He hissed through clenched teeth. "Besides you've already been replaced. I never needed you." You held your hand over your chest, the sharp pains that flickered there incapacitated you. His eyebrows furrowed, one gloved hand came up to the crook of your arm to steady you. His touch burned like a fire, but the excruciating pain you were feeling never subsided. You dropped to the ground, Homelander called your name, but you weren't able to answer. You whimpered, expression clenching with a sob, a fist clutched over your chest. You sniffled and shook your head.

Fuck this.

"This was why I fuckin' left." There was no physically matching the Homelander, but when you shoved his arm away he released you. You stood up and then walked back toward your bedroom.

Punishment be damned. You were going to get the fuck away from him. You couldn't play pretend that everything was okay anymore. Not after that.

The evidence was substantial. Homelander wasn't fazed at all by your absence.

"John, these past few months have been terrible." You got your bags, opened them and laid them out on the bed. "I feel like an accessory rather than a lover to you. You lie to me. You sneak behind my back. Jesus Christ, if I fuckin' did that to you, people would die." He frowned, finally listening to what you were saying. "You don't fuck me anymore. You don't kiss me. We don't watch movies together or stay up all night talking to each other anymore. And I miss you." You were going back and forth between you dresser, shoving clothes and any of your belongings into the suitcases. "I thought I could leave. I figured, 'Well, he doesn't care much about me anyways.'" You stared down at the mess of clothes and sighed. "I was right. You're a terrible fuckin' person."

You might as well just die. You couldn't keep living like this.

"I gave you everything." He snorted in disbelief, held his hands up and gestured around. "I put you on a fuckin' pedestal."

"Sure, John."

"You're crazy!" He chuckled maniacally, "You don't even know what you're talking about. You're the one who hurt me! You left me!"

"Because you wouldn't listen to me!" You spun at him, wanting nothing more than to slap him. "Accusing me at every turn, telling me that I need to watch myself before I go too far. Maybe you're the fuckin' crazy one!"

"Watch yourself!" He growled.

"Do you see?!" You crossed your arms and shook your head vigorously. "And then you replaced me?! With who?" You sobbed, then began to nervously nibble at your fingers. "We might as well not even be soulmates anymore."

Homelanders eye's were closed shut, fists clenched at his sides.

"If you're going to kill me, do it now." You plopped onto the edge of the bed. "Because I'm not sure I could even live without you." And you were staring off with a blank stare when Homelander flooded your vision. He stepped out in front of you, then crouched down to your level. You couldn't believe he would do such a thing. He grabbed your hands in his, thumbs caressing your knuckles.

"I could never." He admitted in a choked breath. It was then you noticed that his own eyes were glistening with tears. "I didn't mean to-" He cut himself off, turned his head away. You cupped his cheek and forced him to gaze up at you.

"Please tell me you're feeling this too." You pulled one of his hands up to your chest, wrapping your arms around it. "I'm hurting, John, I-I-I can't do this anymore." He rested his head on your lap, caressed the fingers of free hand along your thigh.

"I fucked up." He whispered, "I didn't replace you. I could never." Tears finally spilled out of his steely blue eyes and you whimpered at the sight. He did care. "You can't leave me." He added in the silence, "You can't do that to me ever again."

"Then, show me that you love me." You breathed, leaning your forehead into his. "Tell me things and make time for me."

"You should have just told me how you fuckin' felt." He cleared his throat, scowling as he looked away, still resentful. He just didn't get it, did he.

"You wouldn't let me." You released his hand, but it remained there. "I'm not going to do this again. I'm a human being, John. Is that so hard for you to see?" His fingers stretched up toward your chin and he caressed at the flesh there. "You're human too." You whispered, his eyebrows furrowed and he stared deeply at you in confusion. "You are." His head craned away, he licked his lips and then his expression went stern.

"Don't do it again." Was all he said. He stood to his full height, towering over you. "Don't do it again, or I will kill everyone." You heart stuttered. He was dead serious. "If you leave me again, I'll wipe this fuckin' earth clean and you're going to watch me to do it." He paused, then his eyebrows flicked up. "Do you understand?"

You nodded.

"Say it."

"Y-Yes." You replied in a stutter, a tear slid down your cheek and you swiftly wiped it away.

"Let's have dinner." He began walking toward the double doors. "To celebrate your return, we'll go wherever you want."

"Okay." When he disappeared around the corner, you allowed your heart to drop and you inhaled a deep breath of panic.

Was this worth it?

Did you even want to be his soulmate anymore?

[apod]

2024 May 9

The Galaxy, the Jet, and a Famous Black Hole Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Explanation: Bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is home to the supermassive black hole captured in 2017 by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope in the first ever image of a black hole. Giant of the Virgo galaxy cluster about 55 million light-years away, M87 is rendered in blue hues in this infrared image from the Spitzer Space telescope. Though M87 appears mostly featureless and cloud-like, the Spitzer image does record details of relativistic jets blasting from the galaxy's central region. Shown in the inset at top right, the jets themselves span thousands of light-years. The brighter jet seen on the right is approaching and close to our line of sight. Opposite, the shock created by the otherwise unseen receding jet lights up a fainter arc of material. Inset at bottom right, the historic black hole image is shown in context at the center of giant galaxy, between the relativistic jets. Completely unresolved in the Spitzer image, the supermassive black hole surrounded by infalling material is the source of enormous energy driving the relativistic jets from the center of active galaxy M87. The Event Horizon Telescope image of M87 has been enhanced to reveal a sharper view of the famous supermassive black hole.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240509.html

[five-rivers]

Turpentine

An AU following the same 'ages' concept as Baroque. You do not have to read Baroque to understand this.

.

As a superhero, ghost-based or otherwise, Danny tended to be hyper-aware of changes in his environment.  So long as he wasn't sleep-deprived, anyway.  Which he was.  Frequently.  But Frostbite didn't spar with him when he was sleep deprived, so, when he called a time out to their bout, he wasn't.  

"Is everything alright, Great One?" asked Frostbite.  

Danny, a little out of breath despite not needing to breathe - it was a psychological thing, okay? - shrugged and pointed.  "What's that?"

Frostbite turned to look and stiffened.  Danny didn't blame him.  The sight had surprised him, too.  A flat, black disk, about the size of his pinky fingernail held at arm's length, hung in the Ghost Zone sky, over what had formerly been its brightest part.  It looked like an eclipse, only with a lot less light escaping from around the edges.  

"Oh, dear," said Frostbite.  

"What is it?" 

Frostbite turned and flew quickly out of the training stadium.  

"Driftice!" he called.  "The age is turning!  We need the telescope!"

"The telescope?" asked Danny, matching his pace with Frostbite's.  

Frostbite spared a moment to smile down at Danny.  "It's very impressive, I think you'll like it."

Danny nodded.  He’d never met a telescope he didn’t like.  

By the time they reached the buildings proper, yetis were starting to stop and stare at the black spot.  A few of them would then start running, doing something, but others just… kept staring.  

“The telescope!” Frostbite called again.  That spurred a few more yetis into action.  He started giving people directions.

Soon, they were dragging a long, ridged tube from within one of the larger caves and hooking it up to all sorts of equipment.  The lens inside winked at Danny, its curve seeming highly exaggerated for the length of the telescope, until Danny realized it must be made out of ice, which didn’t bend light as much as glass.  

… He may have looked into making a few ice telescopes of his own.  Hey, having a hobby under his circumstances was hard!

“What’s going on?” asked Danny, after Frostbite paused in his orders.  “Are we being attacked or something?”

“Not… as such, no.”  Frostbite looked back up at the black spot, clearly worried.  “Every so often, the Realms… change.  We call it the turning of the age.  It begins with the color of the ambient ectoplasm, and the color tends to indicate the character of the age.  So far, we have been experiencing a green age, which tends towards the more natural or chaotic, with differences between ghosts exaggerated.  With ghosts themselves exaggerated to a degree.”

“Okay,” said Danny, “so… it’s not normally like this?”

“Normal is relative.” Frostbite waved his hand as if dismissing the entire concept.  “Ages can last from anywhere from one year to thousands.  This one has lasted only a few hundred.”

“And I’m guessing black isn’t a good color?”

“It is somewhat more complicated than that.  It is possible that it isn’t true black, which is why we’re looking.  To make sure.  It could be a very deep blue, or green, or red, which tends not to be terribly comfortable, but is still bearable.  It could be the color of a starry night, which is a good deal better.  It could be a color we do not have the senses to see directly, such as ultraviolet or infrared, both of which give rise to rather alien ages, but…”

“But black?” prompted Danny.  

“I do hope it is not truly black,” said Frostbite.  “How to put this… There are certain popular conceptions of afterlives, and other… let us call them worlds beyond worlds, yes?”

Danny nodded, not sure where this was going.  “Like heaven and hell, or the Greek underworld?” he asked, to clarify.

“Indeed,” said Frostbite.  “The Realms reflect those.  Or, perhaps, they reflect the Realms.  Again, the color is the indicator.”

“So, what does black mean?  Hell?”

Frostbite shook his head.  “No.  Hell is red, and… to be truthful, Great One, despite all the woes that come to the fore when we become demons, red ages have positives as well.  Black, true black, is… nothing.”

“Nothing?” repeated Danny.  He was hoping he was misunderstanding.

“Nothing,” confirmed Frostbite.  “Cessation.  Nonexistence.  Not Ending, but stopping.  It is–”

“You’re going to die?”

“No,” said Frostbite.  “As I said, no Ending.  Typically.  But… if the age is truly black, then we will cease to exist until the next age, only returning when it turns again.  It is not sleep.  It is not death.  We simply will not be.”

Danny wasn’t sure if that was better, and he was sure that showed on his face, but Frostbite didn’t look all that enthused, either.  

“The black ectoplasm will spread from where it began, affecting other ectoplasm constructs, including ghosts, on contact.”

“So, if it touches you, you just… stop existing?”

“There is generally a small amount of time between contact and cessation, but… yes.”  Frostbite turned more fully to Danny.  “That is why, if the age is true black, you must leave and not return until the age changes again.”

“What?  Why just me?”

“Think, Great One.  We are fully ghosts.  We cannot survive without ectoplasm.  Yes, some might try to hide in the human world, and avoid the touch of the black.  Some might even succeed.  But they will be much weakened, perhaps even to Fading, should the age last long at all.  But here, we will return, even if much time has passed.  But for you… You are different.”

“Because I’m a half ghost.”

“Yes,” said Frostbite.  “You may be affected just as we are, but imagine, what might happen to you if you suddenly lost your ghost half?”

“I’d… lose my powers, at least,” said Danny, swallowing against sudden nausea.  That was a little too close to what had happened in the bad future, even if it was in the opposite direction.  

“Yes, and if that happened here, while the black was coming, you would not be able to escape.  You would simply fall, unless you managed to hit something.  What is the other option?”

Not one Danny wanted to consider.  “I might… die.”

“And your ghost might come back at the end of the age, or… it might not.  I do not mean to frighten you unduly, Great One, but let me say it again: if the age is black, leave, and do not come back.  Close your portal, leave town, go where you will not be found.”

“Because other ghosts might be affected and bring it through the portal?”

“Because the portal itself would go black, and radiate throughout your town before collapsing.”

“Oh,” said Danny, softly.  “Okay.”

“I would not wish to come back to this world, only to find that you were unmade by black ectoplasm.  I would far prefer to learn that you had died after a long and happy life.”  He smiled.  “But the age might not even be black!  There could be stars, or–”

“Chief Frostbite,” said one of the technicians, nervously lacing and unlacing his fingers. 

“Yes, Flashfreeze?”

“It’s black.”

.

“I’m so sorry, Danny,” said Jazz.  

“It’s not like anyone is dying,” said Danny, mouth dry.  No one but him, if he screwed up.  

No one but him, Vlad, and Dani.  

“It’s still a loss,” said Jazz, who looked like she wanted to cry herself.  “How are we going to tell Mom and Dad?”

“I–”  He hadn’t made a decision to tell them anything.  “I don’t know.”

“They won’t close the portal unless one of us says something,” said Jazz, which was very true.  “We’re going to have to tell them, especially if we have to move away to get away from the natural portals.”

“I know,” said Danny, hunching his shoulders.  

“I know,” said Jazz.  “This is awful, but…  I don’t want you to die, Danny.  I don’t even want you to have to lose your powers.”

“I know,” said Danny.  “I know.  I’m just…  I think I need to talk to Vlad first.”  Vlad was out of town for the rest of the weekend for some business thing, but he’d be back on Monday.

“What?” asked Jazz, making a face that was a very appropriate reaction to Danny suggesting they talk to Vlad.  

“He studied the same stuff they did.  He’ll know how to explain it to them.  And he might know how to find Dani.”

Jazz cursed softly under her breath.  “I didn’t even think–  You haven’t heard from her lately?”

Danny shook his head.  “Last time, she was in Eastern Europe and it was a payphone.  She’d broken the burner Sam got for her and couldn’t get a new one.”

“Crap,” she said.  “Wait, what about Valerie?  Isn’t her board powered by ectoplasm?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny, chewing his lip.  “Maybe.  Oh, gosh, what if she falls out of the sky or something?”  He rubbed his face.  “Do I have to tell her, too?”

“Maybe we can get Mom and Dad to warn her,” said Jazz, in a blinding display of optimism.  “Maybe after we tell them, they can make a public service announcement or something.”

“Maybe,” said Danny, significantly more dubious.  “I just– I think I need to tell Vlad first, that’s all.”

Jazz nodded, then paused.  “We have time?”

“Yeah, it didn’t look like it was getting any bigger from where I was,” said Danny.  “Frostbite said it could take months for the age to completely flip over, depending on stuff like where it started.”

“Okay,” said Jazz.  “Then we can wait until you tell him.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Great.”  He rubbed his arms.  He itched to leave, to run, to fly and put this behind him, but…  The idea of a touch of black, then falling–  

Jazz hugged him.  “It’s going to be alright,” she said. 

Danny hugged her back.  “I hope so.”

.

“Anyway,” said Danny, picking at a sliver of veneer that had come off Tucker’s desk.  It was only attached by one end.  “That’s it, I suppose.  The end.”

“That’s… a lot,” said Tucker.  “Are you… okay?”

“Not really,” said Danny.  “It’s–  Maybe it’s a good thing?  I won’t have to fight ghosts anymore and all that, right?”  He rubbed his eyes.  

“I mean, maybe?  I’m a little… stunned about it, too.”

“So am I,” said Sam.  “It’s just going to disappear?  All of it?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

“How long?”

Danny shook his head.  

“Oh my gosh.”  Sam got up from the beanbag chair and started to pace.  “It’s just, we have friends there.  And they’re just going to–?  Are you sure we can’t do anything?”

“Frostbite was pretty sure,” said Danny, curling up.  

“But–”

“I don’t want to die again, Sam.”  That brought Sam’s pacing to a stop.  “I’ll always fight if it seems like there’s a chance, but.  I really don’t want to die.”

Sam sat back down.  

“Frostbite really made it sound like there was nothing we could do,” continued Danny.  “He’s been around for a while, you know?  It sounded… It sounded like he’s done this before.”

“Okay,” whispered Sam.  “What do you want us to do?”

Danny shrugged, then made himself laugh.  “Get into whatever college I do?  That’s a joke.”

“Hey, you tell us where you’re going, and we will,” said Tucker.  “Fast as anything.”

“At least the same city,” said Sam.  

.

Danny had to ring the doorbell three times before Vlad opened up.  Jerk.  

“Why, Daniel,” purred Vlad, who had clearly just been taking his time, “are you skipping school for this?”

“Shut up,” said Danny, already annoyed by Vlad’s whole… everything.  “We need to talk.”

“By all means, come inside.”

Vlad’s mansion was as opulent as ever.  

“Can I offer you some breakfast?  Guaranteed not to come alive.”

Danny forced down the thought that soon his home wouldn’t be at risk for that, either, and shut the door behind him.  “No thanks,” he said, and began to share what Frostbite had told him.  

As he did, the smug look slipped off Vlad’s face, replaced with something stonier.  

“I’ll have to confirm independently, you understand,” he said.  It didn’t sound like a taunt or a joke, just a fact.  

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.  I have to go to school, so don’t get yourself killed.”

“I’m touched by your concern, Daniel, but unlike your father, I do understand basic lab safety.”

That had to be a new addition since college, but Danny kept the snark behind his teeth and just let the door bang behind him on his way out.

.

Vlad was waiting in the parking lot for him when school got out.  

“Why’s he here?” asked Sam.  

“Probably because he’s just as freaked out as I am,” said Danny.  He sat down on the steps.  “I’m going to wait for Jazz.”

“You sure, dude?” asked Tucker.  

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” said Tucker, dubiously.  

“Call us if you need us to kick some vampire butt.”

“Got it.”

Danny only had to wait a few more minutes before Jazz came out.  “Why’s he here?”

“Dunno,” said Danny, getting up and brushing off his pants.  “Want to find out?”

They walked over to the running car.  It wasn’t quite a limo, but it was long, and the back seats faced each other.  

“So?” asked Danny, climbing in.  

Vlad looked wrecked.  “You were right,” he said.  

“Wow, no kidding.”

Vlad waved off his sarcasm.  “This is not time for jokes, Daniel, I–  Jasmine.”

“Vlad.”

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Well, you get both of us or none of us,” said Danny.  “You can drop Jazz off at home just as easily as you can drop me off.”

“And Jasmine’s car?”

“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Jazz.  “Just drive me back.”

Vlad rolled his eyes.  “I can send someone to come pick it up.”  He leaned over to close the door after Jazz, then tapped on the closed divider between them and their driver.  The car started forward.  

“So, you’ll tell them?  Our parents?” asked Danny.  

“I’ll try.  But do you really think that will stop them?”

“Yes,” said Danny, forcefully.

“If they know it’s something that could hurt Danny, they’ll stop.”

“I certainly hope you’re right,” said Vlad.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Vlad’s sneer was a shadow of its former self.  He looked genuinely ill.  “Daniel, they already know their research has hurt you.  Or do you think they forgot about bringing you to the hospital after your accident with the portal?”

“That’s different.”  That was an equipment problem, not an issue with the content of their research itself.

“Is it?  They are very aware that the same research landed me in the hospital for years, no matter how much they like to ignore that little fact.”

Normally, Danny would dismiss this as just another ploy of Vlad’s, an attempt to turn him against Jack and become Vlad’s evil apprentice, but…  Not today.  There was a little too much truth to his words.  

“Did they even put up any safety measures after that?  How about when they learned their portal was spewing dangerous ghosts into town at all the hours of the day and night?”

“They did,” said Jazz, although her tone rang false to Danny.  It was true that they’d installed the doors on the portal, and the ecto-exodus alarm, but… for all they claimed to be dedicated to protecting people from ghosts, they hadn’t done much else.

Vlad leaned back.  “As I said, I hope you’re right, for both our sakes.  Based on my calculations, we should leave town before the month is over, to be safe.  If they haven’t left by the thirtieth, I advise you to come with me.  My lawyers can sort everything out after the fact, and if not, I have enough contacts to be able to create entirely new identities for both of us.”

“Do you have any idea how threatening that sounds?” asked Jazz, peeved.

“It’s a service Daniel might find himself in need of, if Jack and Maddie are unreasonable.  I have no intention of dying or letting Daniel die because of this.”

The declaration made Danny feel better.  Not much better, but better.  

The car rolled to a stop.  “In the meantime, I will try to use less drastic measures.”  Vlad raised an eyebrow.  “The question now, I think, is whether or not you will tell them.”

Danny hunched his shoulders and fiddled with the door handle.  “Yeah,” he said.  

“Excellent.  Then we can begin.”

“Wait,” said Danny.  

“What?” asked Vlad, flatly, clearly annoyed.

“Do you know where Dani is?” asked Danny, reluctant to bring Vlad into this particular problem, but unwilling to give up even the thinnest lead.

Vlad gave him a baffled look.  

“Danielle,” clarified Danny, annoyed.  

“Yes,” said Vlad.  “Don’t look so surprised, Daniel.  We may have parted on less than amicable terms, but she’s still my daughter.”

“You tried to melt her.”

“A misunderstanding.”  

Danny wasn’t sure how that could be a misunderstanding.  

“We all do unwise things under the influence of our passions, Daniel.  The important thing is that we rise above them.  You’ll understand someday.”  He climbed out of the car. 

“I hope not,” muttered Jazz.  

Then, some of the conversation’s implications caught up with Danny.  

“Wait,” he said, phasing through Jazz to get out fast and jogging after Vlad.  “Wait.  You don’t expect me to tell them now, do you?”

“Daniel, there is no time.  Tell them now, or tell them never.”  Vlad opened the door and walked in like he owned the place.  

“Vladdie!” exclaimed Jack, who had been tinkering at the kitchen table.  He leapt up and embraced Vlad, swirling him around.  Vlad looked like he wanted to die again right then and there.  

“Hello, Jack, is Maddie home?”

“Yes,” said Maddie, coming up the stairs from the lab.  Her voice was about as warm and cuddly as sandpaper left in Antarctica for three months.  “What do you want, Vlad?”

“I have discovered some disturbing news,” he said, “but I’m afraid that much of it will only make sense in the context of what Daniel is about to tell you.”

Everyone looked at him expectantly.  Jazz gave him a small thumbs up.  

Danny very much would have liked to strangle Vlad.  If someone had to out themselves, why couldn’t it be him?

“What is it, Danno?” asked Jack.  

Danny swallowed.  “Do you remember that time I got shocked by the portal?”

.

As far as reveals went… it was neither everything he’d feared nor everything he’d hoped for.  There had been a lot of shouting.  No one thought he was dead or possessing his own corpse.  Jazz had accidentally outed Vlad somewhere in the middle of an argument.  He was able to go to sleep in his own house without being afraid he was going to be dissected.  His parents had agreed to start the process of shutting down the portal.  The only reason he wasn’t super ultra forever grounded for the rest of his life was because of the whole ‘might die soon’ thing.  

It was exhausting.  Danny didn’t know if he was glad it was over or not.  

This whole week was exhausting.  

He pressed his face into his pillow and swallowed back tears.  He was going to miss his friends. Heck, he was going to miss his enemies.  

He didn’t want to die.

.

Every time he went to school that week, every time he went to Sam’s, or Tucker’s, or the Nasty Burger, or anywhere in town, he was acutely aware that it might be the last time he was in any of those places.  Every time he went ghost, he understood that this time might be it.  Every time he shooed off an animal ghost or spotted Valerie in the hall, or saw the green glow of ectotechnology–

It was ending.  It was all ending.  At least for Danny.  

He wanted to hold onto it.  He wanted to stop time - and wasn’t that a temptation?  To try to find Clockwork?  But he’d learned his lesson about meddling with time, and there was no guarantee Clockwork was even still…  

Danny settled on the word awake.  

So, he did his best to savor it all, even the bad parts.  It didn’t always work very well.  There was too much tension, too much fear.  

Tension and fear did wonders for his Doomed score, though.  He was actually close to beating Sam, for once.  

Except, no he wasn’t.

“No, no, no,” said Danny as Sam pulled a power move out of nowhere.  “Argh!”  Annoyed, he pushed his rolling chair back so he could stare more directly at Sam, where she was playing on the other side of Tucker’s attic.  She wasn’t even looking at the screen, but staring over her shoulder to grin smugly at Danny.  “You suck,” he said.  

“No, that’d be you.  You know, the one whose screen says ‘you died’ on it?”

“Ha!” exclaimed Tucker.  “I’ve got the key!”

Danny turned back to the computer and started smashing the resurrect button.  

Danny’s phone began to ring.  He juggled it open with one hand.  “Hi, sorry, Jazz, I lost track of time and–”

“Don’t come home,” said Jazz.  

“What?”

“They–”  Jazz inhaled sharply, angrily.  “The ectoweenies are dead.”  

Danny’s hand fell still.  “What do you mean… dead?”

“They’re just.  They’re hot dogs!  Rotting hot dogs.  I don’t–  I think they’re experimenting with it.  Mom and Dad.  I overheard–  I think they found some, and they’re experimenting with it, and some of them got into the fridge full of stuff we eat because neither of them ever heard about lab safety, and I don’t know if it’s safe for you to be around me, Danny.”

The death jingle played tauntingly over the speakers, three times over.  

“What- Why wouldn’t it be safe for you to be around me?”

“For you to be around me.  I could have black ectoplasm on me and not even know it.  I don’t think it’s really detectable without an energy signature, is it?”

“Jazz,” said Danny, voice cracking.  “Do you– Why?”  He gasped.  “Why would they–?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to know!”  Danny had to know!

“They said something about fixing– I don’t know if I heard it right.  I just–”  Her voice crackled over the phone.  “Go to Vlad’s.  Forget whatever they promised.  Leave now.  I’ll– If they ask, I’ll say you’re in bed.”

Danny closed his eyes.  His face was wet.  “Okay,” he said.  “Okay.  I– I love you, Jazz.”

“I love you, too, little brother.  Stay safe.”  She hung up first.  She must have known he wouldn’t.  

“You have to go, don’t you?” asked Sam. 

“Yeah,” said Danny, hoarsely.  He scrubbed at his face.  “I do.  But… I will see you guys again.”

Tucker nodded.  “You’ve still got our numbers and our Doomed codes, right?” 

Sam threw a pen at him.  “Not the time?”

“Then when is the time?” demanded Tucker, rubbing the back of his head.  “When is the time, huh?  When he’s gone and can’t contact us because he doesn’t have our phone numbers?”

“I have them,” said Danny.  “Memorized.  I– I’ll call.  As soon as it’s safe.”

“You’d better,” said Sam.  

He hugged them.  

(He hoped it wasn’t the last time.)

.

The sun was just beginning to set when Danny reached Vlad’s house, and the comparison between the darkening sky and the darkening Ghost Zone made him shiver.  He bypassed security and knocked on Vlad’s door.  

“Daniel?  What are you doing here?” Vlad asked.  Unlike before, he was wearing clearly casual clothes.  “Did something happen?”

“You were right,” said Danny.  “They didn’t stop.”  Danny’s voice cracked and he swallowed.  “Jazz says we need to leave, now.”

“Oh, Daniel,” said Vlad.  “I’m so sorry.  Genuinely, I would have preferred them to see reason, for both our sakes.’”  He reached back inside and grabbed a pair of long coats.  The first he threw at Danny, the second he put on around his own shoulder.  “Can I assume that second bag is your ‘go-bag?’”

Danny nodded.  He’d kept one at the school, and hadn’t brought it home after the reveal.  He hadn’t thought to.  He’d raided his locker on the way to get it, and before he’d left Tucker had shoved a lot of other stuff at him that had gotten squished either into his backpack or the go-bag.  

“Good.”  Vlad knelt and phased a hand through his entryway tile before pulling out a hefty duffel bag of his own.  “Then we don’t need to wait.  I’ve had my plane fueled and ready to go at a moments’ notice since you told me.”  He took two steps back into the house.  “We will transform and fly there invisibly, to avoid notice.  Can you maintain that for the entire journey?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.  

“Don’t let your pride get in the way.  Can you?  Surely, you’ve noticed our abilities becoming more difficult to access.”

Danny had thought that was just him.  Some kind of psychological thing.  But if Vlad had noticed it, too…  “I can do it,” he said.  

“Good,” said Vlad, transforming.  “Follow me.”  He turned invisible and flew through the ceiling.  

Danny paced him.  “So, where are we going?” he asked.  “On the plane,” he clarified, catching Vlad’s look.

“For now?  Missouri.  I have properties there that I never involved in my research and which should be safe for us.  Afterwards, we will be able to assess our situation and move from there.  I will have to contact my lawyers - our lawyers, now.  The child endangerment and neglect case against your parents will have to be absolutely airtight, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the deathtrap they have downstairs and how long I’ve been collecting evidence.”

Danny wrinkled his nose.  “And how long have you been collecting evidence?”

“Quite some time.  Don’t forget, I’ve just been vindicated, Daniel.”

He wouldn’t.  Not for a long, long time.  “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

“I was able to get into contact with Danielle earlier today,” said Vlad.

“What did she say?”

“Not much to me,” said Vlad, with a hint of wryness.  “She wants to hear everything from you before she believes anything I say.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“She hung up on me.  Don’t worry, she’s far away from any major supernatural hotspots.  I thought I’d give her time to cool down and then contact her again while you were present.”

“Fine,” said Danny.  “Where is she?”

“Poland, at the moment.”  

They reached the airport and descended into the plane.  Danny let go of his invisibility with a heavy sigh as Vlad went about turning on the lights.  

“Our pilot will be here momentarily,” said Vlad.  “Make yourself at home.”

Home.  Danny put his bags on his lap and hunched around them.  He’d been bracing himself for this.  Really.  He’d known he was going to have to leave for a whole week, now.  

It still felt worse than getting thrown clear through a building.  

.

“It’s true,” said Danny, looking out the landscape windows of Vlad’s Missouri estate.  “I’m with Vlad, the Ghost Zone isn’t safe, the…”  He trailed off, not wanting to recap everything.  “I’m the one who told Vlad it was happening.”

“Okay,” said Dani, voice small and distant.  “So… What should I do?  If even your powers are getting harder to use…”  She trailed off, but she didn’t have to finish the sentence.  In more ways than one, Dani’s existence depended on the careful use of her powers.  

“Let Vlad bring you back here.  It’s– I know,” he said in response to Dani’s groan.  “I know.  But he doesn’t actually want either of us dead, and he’s got, you know, resources.  And– And I don’t want you out on the streets in a foreign country, okay?”

“All countries are foreign to me,” grumbled Dani.  “I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“Please,” said Danny.  “Even if it’s just long enough for him to set us up in a boarding school or give us our own apartment or something.”

“You think he’d do that?”

“I have no idea,” admitted Danny.  “He’s rich enough to.  Please come, Dani.”  Vlad was… not being as terrible as he could be, about all this.  Actually, he was being… fine.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.  “Alright,” she said, finally.  “I’ll come.”

.

Living in Missouri…  Well, living in Vlad’s version of Missouri was beautiful, lavish, luxurious.  Vlad was definitely going all out.  But every day Danny spent here, it felt more and more like living in a photograph.  The sunlight, the grass, the leaves on the trees… it all felt flat, as if something vital had been drained from underneath the world.  Even sitting in the garden, bare feet in the fountain, felt unreal.  

Danny didn’t know if that was just him, or if it was another side effect of the Ghost Zone going dormant.  He hoped it was just him.  That would mean it might go away if he got a grip.

“Daniel,” said Vlad, shoes crunching along the gravel path.  “I think you’ll be pleased to know the court case is going well, and I am attempting to develop a decontamination procedure that might allow Jasmine to visit us here someday.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  He swished his feet through the water.  “Do you feel like…”  He sighed, not being able to find the words.  

“Every day,” said Vlad, sitting down next to Danny.  “We won’t be able to stay here longer than a year.  Our own ectoplasm will tend to form a thin spot.”

“That’s fine,” said Danny.  “Dani likes traveling.”  She liked traveling, and hopefully Vlad would hurry up and get her fake passport made already.

“I hope you will come to like it, too…  Although, I’m not sure we’ll need to keep up that pace for very long.  Our ectosignatures are fading.  I suppose we owed more of our powers to the Ghost Zone proper than I expected.”  He shook his head. “In any case, we should look towards the future.  Our futures.  You want to be an astronaut, don’t you?”

“Does that even matter, now?”

“Daniel, you are aware of how rich I am, aren’t you?  I could buy NASA.”  Vlad’s dramatic gestures matched his words.  He even went as far as to light his hands with pink ectoplasm.  Danny watched them flicker through the reflection in the basin of the fountain.  

“No, you couldn’t.”

“No,” said Vlad, lowering and extinguishing his hands, “I couldn’t.”  He kept looking up at the sky.  “It’s strange, isn’t it?  It’s strange.  All this power we’ve had, and our passions, all our goals, simply… remained out of our reach.  But now we’re losing them.  Our powers.  Our passions.”

“Do you think we’ll find them again?” asked Danny.  

“Perhaps.  Perhaps if we live long enough, if we fight hard enough.  You do want to be an astronaut, don’t you, Daniel?”

Danny looked up, but not towards Vlad.  He focused on the thin, faint gibbous moon, visible even in daylight.  

“I guess,” he said. 

Vlad patted his shoulder as he stood.  “There,” he said.  “Then we should start discussing your education, little badger!  You can’t become an astronaut by moping around my mansion all day!”

Danny turned his head to regard Vlad with a mixture of disbelief and disgust.  “Don’t call me that, fruitloop.”

“That’s more like it!  Now, come along.  We have tutors to vet!”

.

Thinking about potentially doing more with this continuity.

[contentment-of-cats]

Chiss/Human hybrids

1: Chiss are diverged from their Human ancestry. The Chiss hate to admit that Humans are the root of their family tree.

2: Chiss DNA has differences from that of standard Humans, but the remains of the symbiont adapt to hybridization with near-human species. While viable pregnancies are unusual, they are not rare outside of the Ascendancy.

3: However, where there is a Chiss father, those are some big babies. Chiss babies weigh an average of 9 pounds at a full-term birth. This is small when the average Chiss woman is about 6'4" tall. Tell an average 5'6" Human woman that she's having a 9 pound baby and she's probably going to kill you.

4: Chiss women with Human partners get to deliver a average 7 pound baby. Also as far as male Human/female Chiss pairings - "Smaller works harder."

5: Chiss can tell a lot about Humans from infrared (it's called 'getting hot' for a reason) and scent. They can also see the standard Human Blaschko's lines - like tabby stripes - when most humans/near-humans can't. They like the stripes and think we're cute - like tookas.

6: A hybrid child will have the outward appearance of the Chiss parent, but the hair color/texture of the Human parent. The insult 'moactan teel' means 'light-haired' and is also a term for 'impure' ancestry. It also speaks to previous Chiss/Human pairings and thus Human DNA in the vaunted Chiss genome. Likewise, there is Chiss DNA in Human populations from the time of the Sith Wars.

7: A hybrid child will be taller than average for a Human, shorter than average for a Chiss.

8: One reason that the Ascendancy wants diaspora Chiss back in is because they have higher birthrates, but also they do not want Chiss straying to the inner systems. Diaspora Chiss populations are mostly in Wild Space or at the very edges of the Chaos - far out of the normal CEDF patrols. They have orders to bring back any moactan teel as well.

9: Hybrids show a stronger tendency - whether male or female - to have Sight and to have it last into adulthood. This leads to those with the talent for navigation into the Navigators' Guild. The guild will never assign an outlander Chiss or a Chiss hybrid to a Chiss vessel. Hybrids also have talents other than telepathy or navigation.

10: Hybrids are mostly smaller than average for Chiss, taller than average for Humans and have a more slender build. Their bones are lighter, and break more easily than Chiss bones. They are prone to detached retinas and ectopia lentis.

[didyoutrydynamite]

Target in Sight

Huntress Sniper: *Assembling her rifle on top of a rooftop* Spotted any of them yet?

Huntress Spotter: *Peering through a pair of high powered binoculars* I’m reading over sixty heat signatures in the hotel. The bounties could be any one of them.

Huntress Sniper: *Adjusts stock* Remember. They’re traveling in a group of four and always share a room when they settle down. Look for any room with four guests.

Huntress Spotter: Going to be difficult when it’s the middle of the day. Some of them probably aren’t going to be in their room until night... Wait a minute I’ve got suspicious movement.

Huntress Sniper: *Pulls slide on her rifle* Meaning?

Huntress Spotter: *Zooms in with her binoculars* Meaning a signature just  made their way to the roof top alone. Tall. Male build.

Huntress Sniper: *Attaching tripod* Maintenance?

Huntress Spotter: Don’t think so. They seem to be swinging at something. Turning off Infrared. *Deactivates her Semblance and then begins to blush* Damnnnnn~❤ Hello tall and handsome.

Huntress Sniper: *Huffs* Can you please check out hot guys after we locate the targets?

Huntress Spotter: I’m pretty sure I just did. The blonde one in armor. God his wanted poster does NOT do him justice.

Huntress Sniper: Can you please focus!? The blonde one in armor is second most valuable bounty of the group. Jaune Arc is worth millions.

Huntress Spotter: Jaune Arc~ Ooh I like that. Rolls off the tongue nice. Bet he does too-

Huntress Sniper: CAN YOU NOT? *Slams scope on her rifle* I don’t care how cute a bounty is. As far as I am concerned he is either our next paycheck... *Looks through her scope at the roof top* ... or my future husband, good god look at that cute butt.

Huntress Spotter: Trust me, I’m taking in every juicy detail. Look at the muscles as he swings that sword.

Huntress Sniper: Must be training. *Blushes* I can see why he’s one of Mistral’s most wanted.

Huntress Spotter: Most wanted in bed, maybe. LOOK AT THAT HAIR! 

Huntress Sniper: *Zooms in* Look at his eyes~ I could just drown in them.

Huntress Spotter: Ok, new plan. We capture the other three, turn them in, and keep him for ourselves.

Huntress Sniper: *Laughs* You’re unbelievable!

Huntress Spotter: *Sing songy* I didn’t hear a no~!

~O~O~O~O~O~

Jaune: *Swinging his sword and shivers* Man, I’m getting too paranoid these days. Feels like I’m being watched... and objectified?

[tobyislame]

general eyeless jack headcanons

ik i literally just said this will be an exclusively ticci toby blog but u guys get one (1) ej post as a treat bc i have a biiiiig phat crush on him

- he has a strong distaste for his given name. constantly being referred to as "eyeless" just feels like twisting the knife. so, he really appreciates it when people shorten it to ej. he prefers to just be called jack, though.

- he has black blood. does that subsequently mean his blush would be black?? idk i’m thinking maybe it shows up on his skin as like a dark bluish-purple, kinda like a bruise but… he’s blushing.

- he's got a nice set of large, pointed teeth. when he speaks those chompers are on FULL display, so if he happens to have his mask off, he’ll mumble to try to keep them as concealed as he can.

- what used to be fingernails are now blackened, talon-like claws, which will rip through everything if he isn’t careful. with enough concentration, he can keep them folded down to make them less obtrusive, at least enough to get dressed without making his clothes all… holey.

- that being said… he has no control over his claws when he’s asleep. his sheets are absolutely shredded, pillowcases torn through. they’re also perpetually stained with his eye goop. he's learned to just not bother with patching up his sheets anymore.

- he is LARGE. he is a LARGE MANTHING. he's 8'2 and well aware that he towers over most because people won't shut the fuck up about it. he's also just stocky, with big burly shoulders and enormous hands and man he is just BIG.

- despite his size, he moves quietly and swiftly. he carries himself like he's much smaller than he actually is.

- he isn't really aware of his own strength — he still surprises himself with the damage that he can unintentionally administer. he finds himself having to make a conscious effort to hold back.

- he's completely blind. the way that he “sees” is similar to snakes — utilizing infrared sensors which lie somewhere in those eye sockets of his (eldritch being rules it doesn’t have to make sense), he can sense the heat given off by objects in his environment. this becomes especially useful when tracking down potential victims. somewhere along the line, he learned or “evolved” to use echolocation as well, gaining the ability to make the same sonar clicks that bats do to make their way through the world. these can’t be heard by human ears, but if you’re close enough, they can be felt in your teeth.

- also similar to snakes, he’s cold-blooded. just absolutely cold to the touch. he wears warm clothes all year round, even in summer. he should be sweltering in multiple layers in the middle of june, but really, he’s just fine.

- his senses have all evolved to compensate for his lack of sight. most sensitive of all, though, are his ears. he can identify individual footsteps from miles away. this makes it near impossible to get away with muttering something under your breath. even from across the entire house, he’d be able to hear what you said. (i am aware actual blind people don't have superhuman abilities i just think this is the way it'd present in an enigmatic being)

- his skin is thick, sort of like a rhino's. bullets essentially ricochet off of him, blades snap... this, however, doesn't make him invincible. high frequencies are a surefire way of disabling him.

- he feels hunger much more intensely than any normal person does. when he goes too long without eating he'll become rabid, driven by instinct alone. at that point, he isn’t himself anymore. his body isn’t his.

- in this condition, he'll take on more bestial qualities, sprouting (larger) claws, a second row of teeth, additional tongues... he also exhibits heightened strength, speed, and agility. he'll behave more like an animal than anything else, tunnel vision pointing to only one thing: eat. he does everything in his power to keep this at bay, because in the past… incidents have occurred. let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be caught in the same forest with that thing prowling around. he hates to hurt others when he doesn’t mean/need to, especially since all he can do in those moments is helplessly watch behind the eyes of something that isn’t him.

- he really isn't a killer. although he's lacking in the sympathy department, he has the ability to put himself in the shoes of others and feel what they feel, which is his biggest weakness — as you can probably imagine, being an empath isn't so convenient when you have to kill to survive. often, he feels the pain of those who have the misfortune of ending up beneath his scalpel. beneath his hands. he’s aware that he’s taking that person away from someone, and it hurts him. he just powers through.

- he couldn't eat human food even if he wanted to, and believe me, he wants to. it's just that, if he even makes an attempt, his body flat-out rejects and regurgitates it. think that one tokyo ghoul scene... basically like that. he seems to be able to ingest coffee and tea just fine, though. earl grey is his favorite. on rainy days, his favorite thing to do is brew a cup and sit on the steps to the front porch, listening to the drops plinking off puddles.

- he doesn't particularly like for anybody to see his face. would rather keep it to himself. he's not exactly sure what he looks like, but he can take an educated guess that it isn't pretty. he'll usually just keep his mask on when he's around others, only taking it off if it ever happens to be absolutely necessary. if someone were to take his mask from him, that’d probably be the closest he could get to his rabid state without fully submitting to it.

- when he’s angry (which seldom happens) the tar in his eyes seems to boil and pop, kind of like hot oil in a pan. if it happened to get on you, it’d fucking burn and begin to dissolve right through your skin in the same way acid would. stay out of the splash zone ig.

- he can cry, but the way it presents is similar to ghibli tears — thick, messy glops of black that stain his skin, clothes, and whatever else they happen to spill onto.

- he doesn't just eat kidneys, he tries to make use of the entire body. it’s the least he can do. he doesn’t want to just throw the rest out like it’s trash. even when they’re dead, dissected, splayed out, closer to meat than human, he tries to respect his victims. they were people once, too. just like him.

- he also tries to make harvesting from his victims as easy of a process as possible, for the both of them. he injects them with anesthesia, enough to kill, then uses surgical tools to make the job as quick and clean as possible. no screams. no thrashing. easy.

- he can't remember much of his past life. most of what he can recall are just bits and pieces of out-of-place memories, puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together no matter how hard he tries to make them. however, the one thing he was able to definitively grasp was his affinity for physiology, human anatomy, and surgery. because of this, he held onto it fucking tightly and devoted himself to it — just so he wouldn’t forget it, too.

- before, he was going to college to become a general surgeon. in fact, he was just about to move on to med school. now he's essentially the mansion's resident surgeon/doctor, and he does his job quite well given that he doesn’t have the resources most other medical professionals have at their disposal.

- he's especially interested in the medicinal qualities of plants. often, he'll go on nature walks in search of herbs that he can put to good use. he uses what he finds to make ointments and medicines and such, often utilizing his own resources in his procedures. in his room is a little garden of his own in the form of pots hanging from the ceiling, holding plants that he meticulously tends to with GREAT precision and care. he'd never trust anyone else to take care of them for him, not even for a day.

- he cannot stand disorganization, it drives him fucking insane. everything has to have a place, and everything has to stay in its place; it becomes difficult for him to find things, otherwise.

- if he can't rely on his sight, then he figures he can at least rely on his memory — it’s why he marks the position of his furniture and such with tape so that if anyone does happen to move something, they can at least put it back exactly where it was.

- messy people get on his nerves. leaving stuff in random places and on the floor is just incredibly inconvenient for him. he's tripped because of people's misplaced laundry and stuff.

- he's a man of few words and lacking in expression. often, a tilt of the head is the most he will react with. when he does speak, his voice is deep, so deep that it seems to vibrate. he keeps his voice soft and quiet, though, as if he's afraid of being too loud. and he is.

- since he doesn't speak much, he empties his thoughts into a journal. he'll write about anything: how his day was, what he did, how he feels, what all had happened in his surgery that day, the things he'd observed... although, if you look through it, ramshackle scraggles that almost resemble words litter the pages. he thinks he's writing words, and will continue to do so until it gets pointed out to him.

- a gentle giant. he's incredibly composed and docile, qualities that betray his physical attributes. he isn't "friendly", per se, but he tries to stay far away from hostility when it isn't needed.

- he has an overbearing need for control. he hates the thought that fate could rip everything out from underneath him whenever it pleases. it happened to him once before. he won’t let it happen again.

- he displays an... almost catlike vigilance. the slightest noise is enough to make his head snap towards the source. it's incredibly difficult to sneak up on him, especially since he hardly ever allows himself to drop his guard. he doesn’t like to be at the mercy of anyone or anything. a lot of his mental energy is put towards preventing bad things from happening to him.

- he can purr .

[cloudyswritings]

Vessel biology: Uh, I forgot what number we’re on…

The return of this BS.

Vessels all tend to have pretty poor eyesight as a baseline, and it does tend to get worse over time(based on the white lady losing her sight and the Wyrm being, you know, blind). Anyway this kinda works with how we as the player hit everything with our nail, I could easily see vessels doing this as a way to feel out the world around them.

The cloaks most vessels have are a mixture of leaves and wings, they grow at a steady rate before reaching a max length and will regrow if damaged sufficiently. Most of these wing-leaf-cloaks are either too fragile to get a vessel into the air, or can’t hold their weight once they’re up there. Broken vessel probably could fly though, and does get some decent air time in their fight.

Overexposure to void after hatching can destabilize the physical form of a vessel and make it more mold able. I headcanon this might be at least partially how the sharp shadow charm works

The vessels all inherited some of the pale kings memories through genetic memory, but specifically the vast majority got his desire to see the radiance killed/contained. It’s part of what drew them back to Hallownest after escaping.

when they get hit/damaged their shells can crack letting out a “scream” of silence, this actually happens in game, it’s why sound gets muted when you take damage. It’s also the closest any vessel gets to a voice to cry suffering.

Despite being fragile from a godly/higher being standpoint vessels are tougher than most mortals, surviving things like direct hits from oomas and the likes of Grimm.

Their sense of touch might function like a sense of taste as well, this comes from their mother who can “taste” the soil and surrounding environment to see if it’s suitable for growth. This works well with the idea that their body is semi permeable due to being mostly void.

If you somehow removed the void from a vessel(by killing them) you’d be left with their mask and an extremely thin completely transparent carapace that in life got much of its strength from the pressure of the void within it. It’d be roughly like a plastic bag in texture.

Given time and enough damage, you could prompt a vessel to metamorphose into either a root or a wyrm, or possibly some fucked up hybrid of the two. They’d still be a vessel and have a shade. Imagine mortals banding together and killing a wyrm just for its shade to spring from the corpse and attack them…

Vessels that can actually see tend to see in a broad spectrum ranging all the way from very low band infrared to X and gamma rays, what exactly he world would look like to them is anyone’s guess.

Most vessels still have vestigial internal organs, though what they look like varies from vessel to vessel. I think ghost probably has a stomach, and functional lungs(albeit ones that don’t actually breathe anything in). All vessels have a core/heart that most of their void is bound around and passes through.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elven 'Physiology' and Quirks

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index[tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Physiology and quirks | Names | Clans and Houses | Pan-Cultural things | Elven 'Subraces' | Philosophy and Religion | Half-elves | [WIP]

In my continued desire to procrastinate on reading two novels and cross-referencing about three sourcebooks for drow culture, I met myself in the middle and did this instead.

Also I really need to rehaul some of the lore compilations...

Unlike elves of other worlds, the Tel'Quessir – except drow – are as tall as humans, but finer boned and typically narrower in build – except for aquatic elves. An elf weighs less than a human of the same build and height, which appears to be something to do with their bone density, as elven bones (especially winged elves’) are light (though ‘surprisingly sturdy’). Their fingertips taper, and their hands and fingers are longer than a humans… although I still think saying they’re 50% longer (palm and fingers) is a bit much.

Elves are noted for their androgyny, which goes both ways; there's not much difference in the skeletal structure and elven women are noted by humans for their narrow hips, which human women comment must make childbirth agonising in comparison.

They don't grow much in the way of body hair - the only visible hair on an elf is their eyebrows and scalp. Elves unused to mixed company find non-elves disturbingly hirsute.

The shape of their facial features, regardless of ‘subrace,’ are as varied as humans. The only rules of thumb are about their eyes and ears:

Elven ears are always pointy – but can vary greatly in shape and length otherwise. They’re somewhat prehensile; elven children can move their ears, but generally this ability is lost with maturation. Maintaining it seems to be a genetic quirk. Whether the shape or whatever, elves have sharp hearing.

Elven eyes are larger in proportion to their face and spaced a little further apart than human eyes, slightly slanted in a manner that gives them a wider field of vision and more acute vision in general.

If you're using recent editions then elves can see in very low light conditions (able to see perfectly clearly by starlight alone). Drow can see in perfect darkness.

If you want to go by older editions you're looking at infravision: elves, like other beings that can 'see' in the darkness, were able to change their sight to the infrared spectrum, perceiving heat signatures. Drow vision was further ranged and more acute than surface elves'.

Elves aren't diurnal, and have no particular circadian rhythm, they just get four hours in whenever and communities are have a consistent level of full activity all day and night.

Drow are noted to have human-level olfactory senses compared to their cousins, implying that the elven sense of smell and taste is stronger too. Which might explain why older elves complain about the youth experimenting with non-elven cuisine and all the ‘over-spiced animal flesh and other abominable foods.’

Elves are biologically wired for music somehow, able to recall melodies flawlessly and engage in music theory , 'the elven faculty for music is uncanny in comparison to most other races,' which they credit to the divine influence of the Seldarine.

While this doesn't always come up in the rules, elves are immune to the paralytic effects of ghouls, due to an incident involving either Corellon Larethian or Lolth, and the ghoul deity Doresain, who in the version of his backstory given for the Realms was a green elf back in -11,200 DR whose recent ancestors were of the nation of Eiellûr and betrayed their people to the dark elven empire of Ilythiir. A rather brutal bastard and slaver who eventually killed and ate the raw flesh of the ruling family of the last surviving green elven nation of Southern Faerûn as part of a pact with the demon lord of the undead, Orcus for eternal life. When Doresain later fell in combat during one of the many skirmishes of the Crown Wars, Orcus brought him back as a unique undead horror and King of the Ghouls and Orcus’ proxy on Toril (so that Orcus could focus on important matters in the Abyss). Doresain eventually became trapped in the Abyss, trapped in service to Yeenoghu when Orcus ignored his pleas to save him (despite his ‘domain’ Orcus despises the undead). Most Torilian sages claim that Lolth intervened and freed him, bringing Doresain back to Toril in exchange for imbuing the drow with immunity to his children and swearing that ghouls would never attack them, which indirectly affected all elves (except for the ‘not attacking’). Others claim he prayed to the gods of his living years, the Seldarine, and they took pity on him in exchange for the same service.

The Seldarine are always depicted as genderfluid or agender – if depicted in art in humanoid form they are shown with two bodies as afab and amab, or possessing both characteristics in a single form. Occasionally a mortal elf is also born who takes after the gods; marked by their androgyny (by elven standards) and the ability to alter their sex characteristics at will, these elves are considered blessed by Corellon and closer to the gods by many elven cultures. They haven’t been given an official word, but the elven word for ‘Blessings of Corellon’ on Toril is ‘Cormiira.’ According to the most popular take on the elven creation myth, the People are born of Corellon’s blood (and possibly Sehanine’s tears as she wept at seeing him gravely wounded), which many elves attribute this as evidence for. The Tel’Quessir do have several other creation myths however.

Elves have an innate connection to the Weave, which is why they're 'the wizard race' and something to do with their connection to the world. Elves are more likely to have the innate ability required to become arcane spellcasters, and some say the Weave is what gives them their lifespans.

Going into purely non-published realmslore from word of god:

The elven gestation period takes two years (this I’m pretty sure is in published DnD somewhere?) Elves tend to avoid being pregnant unless they actively want to and have generally mastered the art of not being pregnant, the threat of being side-lined by shorter lived peoples who have more children and faster be buggered.

The elven diet primarily consists of raw plant matter and fish. The elven digestive system can handle vegetation that others’ cant. They can eat meat, and many do – especially those who grow up around humans, who have developed a tolerance that makes it easier for them to digest – but it’s not a ‘natural’ part of their diet nor does it play a large role. Apparently drinking small quantities animal blood is a reasonably common enough way to consume land animals (I’m not clear on whether this is in the form of soups or beverages).

Elves are severely allergic to cannabis and can't use it, though they have found unspecified alternatives.

While getting it is unpleasant, they are only inconvenienced by bubonic plague and its not considered a dangerous disease.

Elves also draw energy from the sunlight, which bolsters their metabolism, allowing them to eat less and possibly playing a part in their ability to digest previously mentioned plant matter. Access to fresh water (not just drinking it) also plays a part in their overall health. Somehow. Dark elves in the Underdark have adapted over the centuries (or maybe from the High Magic ritual that binds them to it) to draw from the faerzress radiation.

Elven vocal chords can reach pitches higher than humans can reach, and there's a gene that can allow the elf to produce two notes at the same time, which with training allows them to sort-of say two things at once (a 'ghost' vocalisation beneath the spoken words). This is described as 'genetic but not racial' so I assume it can pass to half-elves and any non-elven descendants through them.

---

Reverie/'Eedqa':

Elves do not sleep, unless something has gone wrong (injury, illness, exhaustion). They also can’t be forced to sleep, and are immune to magic that would do so (but not to being whacked over the back of the head and knocked out with something heavy).

- Elves enter a state called the Reverie (or just reverie) in Common, and ‘eedqa’ in Elven. The elf finds a quiet place to relax, gradually tuning out the world and slipping into a trance-like state where they re-experience their lived memories, occasionally interspersed with memories from past lives and visions from the gods – which will be vague and puzzling and probably require a priest to decode, the Lady of Mysteries did not earn that nickname for nothing. - They are somewhat aware of their surroundings in reverie, but pulling themselves back out of their mind is disorienting and waking early is extremely disorienting, much like waking any sleeping individual. Physically, they are immobile, not necessarily lying in a normal sleeping position (sitting or reclining is the norm), their breathing slows into a torpor and their eyes remain open and unfocused, which has occasionally caused panic in acquaintances who’ve never witnessed reverie before and think the elf has died (elves in turn are known to find the 'heaviness' of sleep disturbing to behold).

The only elves who deliberately sleep are priests of Sehanine Moonbow, who occasionally enter the deeper state of unconsciousness to communicate with their goddess, and the majority of drow (whose struggles to achieve reverie have been credited to the Underdark 'fragmenting' their natural instincts, and their inability to relax enough to enter the state).

Elves experience their first reverie in the womb, as pregnancy forges a temporary Rapport between parent and developing foetus where the offspring experiences the parent’s life and learns of their family and culture through them (how much the child can learn varies by parent; quality of education not guaranteed). Young children, lacking experiences of their own, are more likely to experience memories of previous lives unless they share in the reveries of other elves. The occurrence of the first ‘current life’ reverie is a life milestone and typically marks the end of childhood.

It’s very taboo amongst elves to interrupt another elf’s reverie.

-

Communion and Aleirin:

'Elves who lived even in reasonably close contact were so connected to each other through the Reverie and the Weave that they shared at least some shadow of each other’s emotional experiences.'

Elves have something of telepathic abilities, such as the ability to sense their own kind, a ‘sense of welcome,’ ‘warmth’ and ‘safety,’ although this can be obscured. This extends to the ability to enter each others minds and share thoughts, emotions and memory. Although that’s not to say that elves are living in each others heads, nor that they can (or are willing to) do it simply or constantly.

The state of ‘mind melding’ is communion, which is accomplished by sharing reverie while in physical contact (holding hands or pressing palms together, usually). The elven term for communion is apparently quor, however I can’t say for certain that applies to this mystical variety. Communing is credited with the sense of community elves experience, is an important part of elven religion, and they’re noted to anticipate sharing themselves with loved ones and struggle to understand non-elves due to their lack of ability to do so. However, it’s not a state entered into casually, as it requires deep trust and a willingness to be vulnerable with your entire being – you are exposing your every emotion and memory to another. Preparation may take weeks of mundane communication as the elves do away with any prejudices and air concerns to be resolved beforehand. It’s also physically and emotionally draining, and while in communal reverie the elves are entirely unaware of anything but each other and are vulnerable to surrounding hazards. Up to four elves may participate at once.

This awareness of each other lends elves an understanding that allows them to predict each others moods and actions acutely, and aids them to work in sync or borrow one anothers skills for a time (for example an elf who doesn’t know how to speak a certain language may temporarily ‘know’ after borrowing the knowledge from another elf.) Extended use of communion may cause loss of individuality however, as the elves begin to blend into each other.

Elves who isolate themselves from their people - whether this is by their own bitterness, malice, scheming, etc, or if the source is due to external magical affects like the Shadow Weave digging out these emotions (which; Shar, that’s what she does) - lose the ability to reverie and the ability to commune with it. Other elves cannot sense them, describing them as feeling ‘asleep.’

Drow may or may not be capable. They are capable of reverie, which would indicate that they can, they just don't know they can, or plain don't (Lolth would firmly discourage it with torture and death regardless).

Some elves, when they trust each other implicitly, may chose to make the link more permanent – a communion that never ends, in a form called Rapport or aleirin, or aleiryid if the nature of their relationship is romantic. The bonding is permanent, and can usually only be made a single time. Those born of multiple births like twins have rapport with their siblings, but outside of this it’s still uncommon for an elf to make this level of commitment and most are happier with normal, less co-dependent relationships (especially because, if you want to bring in the Complete Book of Elves, the shock of one partner dying can kill the other). A rapport can be made with non-elves, a ranger could even choose to establish one with their animal companion, but such bonds are so rare as to be practically unheard of.

The ability to commune has been attributed to a gland in the elven brain, which produces a magic that veils their minds. At rest it forms a shield that isolates them (and some scholars believe this is where the elven resistance to enchantment magic comes from), but they can lift it or expand it to bring other elven minds in.

The elven resistance to enchantment spells has also been credited to elven culture itself, since magic saturates their world so heavily elves grow up exposed to a constant background radiation of enchantment magic, for lack of a better word, and build up a tolerance. Others have said it’s the elves fey ancestry.

--

Souls/'Ues':

Like most sapient beings who are not humans – or mostly/half-human (excluding half-orcs) dwarves, gnomes or halflings – elven souls, ‘ues’ in elven, are somewhat different to the norm. sometimes differentiated in lore by calling them ‘spirits,’ and do not stay permanently in the afterlife, instead residing in the outer planes for a time (varying from days to millennia) before reincarnating back on the Prime Material Plane. While 5e claims drow are locked out of the cycle, the original lore included drow, and suggested that elves who decide to be evil little bastards in life and bar themselves from Arvandor will find themselves reincarnated as drow (vice versa: a drow who rejects Lolth is unlikely to find themselves reborn in her clutches).

(Elves do not have access to DnD sourcebooks and do not have any concrete idea of this kind of thing, so elven religion and philosophy varies heavily and may or may not reflect these things. Some elves don’t even believe in reincarnation.)

Another traditional side effect was that raise dead didn’t work on elves, only resurrection. Space was made for DMs to hand-waive this if it was getting in the way (because it makes elves expensive to have in the party), and the rule seems to have been officially side-lined for convenience by this point.

--

Ageing:

How elves age has varied by edition and writer. Sometimes they're human aging, sometimes a bit slower, sometimes much, much slower.

In most sources, including 5e core, an elf matures at the same rate, physically and psychologically, as a human, later developing into elven psychological stages as the centuries pass and they outlive the human experience.

In older editions, including realms sources, elves could age slower, taking between 30-60 years to hit puberty (which lasts another 50-85 years). Psychologically, non-elves are known to find elven youths to be rather mature for their age (due to longer lives and communing with the adults in their lives), though they’re still inexperienced by elven standards and hormonal. Elven children are left to pursue their ever shifting curiosity, instincts and impulses which means they generally don’t master any skills and end up about level with any other race by early adulthood. Drow have the fastest rates of maturation, Gold elves the slowest. Wheras in humans afab are known to hit puberty first on average, elves mature at the same average speed regardless.

Elves also have a mystical land-connection thing and are noted to be shaped by their environments, and it has been said of the latter version of ageing that elves may mature faster outside of the slow pace of elven cultures, particularly in dangerous and stressful situations where they need to grow fast.

Bizarrely, and I’m assuming this is a typo, it seems that the process of elven puberty is a bit like getting steroids because they get strength and dexterity bonuses. Or maybe elven teens are just stronger and more agile than their human counterparts, which is probably more likely if it isn't a typo.

[littjara-mirrorlake]

Darkvision. Thanks to your infrared sight, you have superior vision in dark conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only red-tinted shades of gray, as well as temperature differences--to you, warmer objects appear brighter.

This might be one of my favorite racial variations I've written in Plane Shift: Mirrodin/New Phyrexia, for Mirran goblins. The supplement contains many small variations on existing races like this (and is balanced around its own complement of races, instead of D&D's usual full spread).

[klimkovsky]

Beta Lyrae - Sheliak

The small constellation of Lyra is not only very beautiful in the configuration of the stars that make up it, but also contains among them absolutely unique universal diamonds. The star Sheliak - Beta Lyrae is one of such jewels.

Translated from Arabic, Sheliak means a turtle shell (or even the turtle itself), but the same word is used to name an ancient musical instrument similar to a harp or, in fact, a Lyre, because a resonator body was made from a turtle shell, which was necessary for a more melodious sound of the strings. A musical culture on Earth was born somewhat cruelly, singing, among other things, the heavenly distances in which man saw the Worlds of his future - incomparably happier than the one in which he lived then. But man evolved, and at some point, wood began to be used more and more often for making musical instruments - Kifaras and Lyras with a wooden body sounded even better than turtle ones. But the dim star in the constellation Lyra remained called the Turtle.

What exactly this star attracted the attention of ancient astronomers is unknown now, but it was clearly not deprived of attention. It is simply that much of the scientific information from that historical period was lost. And in the 18th century it was discovered that about once a week the star slightly "winks" - fading for a short time, becoming dimmer by about two times. This could easily have been noticed in ancient times, and certainly was noticed (as astronomers of all developed countries of the ancient era noticed similar behavior of the star Algol in the constellation Perseus), but they just could not explain it.

The variability of Beta Lyrae (as well as the variability of Algol) was explained by a young amateur astronomer, John Goodricke. He had no special education, and was also deaf and dumb, but a very keen-sighted and insightful person. John's passion was observing stars, and by the age of 20 he had already examined many of them for brightness variations - simply with the naked eye, since there were no other methods at the end of the 18th century.

Only intuition can explain John Goodricke's guess that the apparent brightness of some stars most likely changes because in reality it is not one star, but two, which, rotating around the center of mass of the system, periodically obscure each other for an observer on Earth. This bold assumption was confirmed a hundred years after the death of the amazing seer.

John Goodricke died very young - at 22, succumbing to pneumonia - two years after discovering and explaining the variability of Beta Lyrae, and just four days after being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, astronomers learned to perform detailed spectral analysis of stars and track the behavior of absorption lines in their spectrograms. In the spectra of Sheliak (Beta Lyrae) and Beta Persei (Algol), the lines behaved similarly - slightly swaying around the places assigned to them by the chemistry of the star - synchronously with the dynamics of brightness changes. This clearly indicated the presence of two luminaries in the system and their orbital motion. This was irrefutable evidence, but indirect. A century later - already in our days - a direct image of the Beta Lyrae system was obtained using the CHARA infrared interferometer. And astronomers saw with their own eyes two stars orbiting the center of mass of the system, alternately eclipsing each other.

It was also discovered that the shapes of these stars are distorted by tidal interactions and resemble oblong melons. It was even discovered that matter flows from one star to another, which changes the proportion of masses in the system and slows down the rotation, increasing the period by 19 seconds per year. At the same time, part of the matter forms an extended accretion disk around the system, which partially dissipates into interstellar space. And in addition to the exchange of mass in this system, there is a significant loss of it.

The period of brightness variation in the Beta Lyrae system is 13 days. But since eclipses occur twice during the entire period (the stars eclipse each other in turn, as if changing places), brightness minima occur approximately once a week. But they are slightly different in depth - 0.9 and 0.5 stellar magnitudes.

Nowadays, the horizons of astronomy have expanded somewhat, thanks to advanced technologies for studying the Universe. And it is already believed that Beta Lyrae is a relatively close system to us. But still, 900 light years is not that close. To see separately stars that are twice as close to each other as the Sun and Mercury is a great achievement for optical interferometry.

The distance separating the components of this system is estimated at 40 million km. Somewhere at this distance from the Sun, in the era of the famous Le Verrier, astronomers were looking for the planet Vulcan. And they found nothing. But now they see a system of two giant stars with similar orbits.

Both components of this system are quite massive — 3 and 13 times the mass of the Sun. And in luminosity — 26 thousand and 6 thousand times, respectively. It is interesting that during the existence of the system — about 20 million years — these stars seemed to have swapped roles. The one that is now massive was skinny, developed more slowly, and the neighboring star — having quickly swelled to the size of a giant — began to share matter with the smaller star. The neighbor was not modest, and took over as much as was given. And now the star that had less mass has gained it in excess. And continues to do so.

Somewhat removed from this close and amazing pair of stars, another component of the system, the so-called Beta Lyrae B, slowly drifts along a huge orbit. What we talked about before was Beta Lyrae A. But there are many more stars in this system.

Beta Lyrae B is clearly visible even in binoculars - it is a 7th magnitude star, separated from the eclipsing variable pair by 46 arc seconds (this is the apparent size of Jupiter). In a small telescope, this double star looks very nice and is an easy object for beginner astronomy enthusiasts. Now it is known that it is also a double system, though a spectral one - not divisible into components in any telescope (they are very close to each other, or maybe it just has not deserve such close attention, and some super-powerful interferometer has not yet been deployed on it).

Another star was found 64 arc seconds away from the main pair of stars, though rather faint for amateur optics - Beta Lyrae C - 13th stellar magnitude. And further away from the aforementioned luminaries, astronomers are now checking for involvement in the system of several more stars - D, E and F. Moreover, in relation to Beta Lyrae F, even convincing evidence of a gravitational connection has been found.

Once again, we started with one star and ended up with a whole star cluster. However, this situation is not uncommon in our Universe. A rare type of star in it are stars like our Sun - stable and completely alone. But maybe that is why we now have the opportunity to study the entire diversity of other cosmic luminaries.

[zooophagous]

Mr. Strauss had long, long grown accustomed to surviving off of charity. Perhaps a blow to one’s pride, but one cannot eat pride. Or live in it. Or clothe one’s self in it. Or hide from the sun or other threats to one’s life in it. Charity seldom lets you choose what you want, however, and while Strauss would never insult or complain about the shelter so graciously offered to him when it really shouldn’t be- the smell of fresh paint and adhesive and dust and other accouterments of construction overwhelmed his senses and put him quite on edge.

Sleep did not come easy in the half-renovated halfway house- despite reassurance that it was indeed safe- but sleep did eventually come. And when it left, he roused himself from the somewhat itchy blankets and the too-small bed and made his way to the dining area which was decked out in plywood floors and bare sheetrock. Much like himself, half formed and barely useful.

Artemis, who sat at the table, was more useful but had gotten about half as much sleep. Her eyes wore dark circles, and her one good eye was fixed intently at a printout of a dispatch log, scanning it for something. What exactly she didn’t know. She’d know it when she saw it. A few entries had been highlighted bright yellow. Promising leads.

“How goes your hunt, Van Helsing?” Strauss asked quietly and sat himself across from her at the little foldout table.

“Bad. These are all of the dispatch logs for animal control in between the date of the fire and today. None of these sound like a lycanthrope. Except maybe a couple of these- an unknown animal, a large dog and what sounds like a black bear here on the 5th. But there’s no followup to any of them.” She sighed and tossed the papers aside.

“I’m worried, Strauss. If he hasn’t been seen at all there’s only two real options. He’s gone completely feral, mindless, living off the wild. Or he’s…”

“Or he’s dead.” Strauss replied sullenly.

“Right.”

Strauss sighed and sat down. “If he’s died, his remains have yet to be recovered. Vicar Martin tells me there are still no sightings of him. He is presumed missing.”

“Which can only mean wherever he is, he’s in the woods somewhere. Basically impossible to track unless you’re a big game hunter. And I don’t know about you, but I ain’t one, and I’m also not about to try and hire one on the down low.”

“So we must find him ourselves.”

“How? With what?”

“I can do a search for him. I may not be a bloodhound but I can smell him, hear him from a long ways off. If I take to the air I may even be able to spot such a large animal-”

“No. You’d be way too visible. Especially because you know the Witchfinders are already out in his last known location looking for him.”

“Not just looking, laying traps, planting cameras, I even hear talk of using an infrared camera attached to a drone.” A cheerful voice interrupted the conversation. Vicar Martin invited himself in with a weary smile. “Sorry. Couldn’t help but overhear. But your friend is in very dire straits. God only knows how he’s managed to escape them for this long.”

“Assuming he’s alive. He hasn’t made contact with anyone as far as we know.” Strauss grumbled in reply.

“Well, if it’s any comfort, he’s still not their main target and the fact that they have no idea where he is bodes well for us beating them to it.”

“You say ‘us’ as if you’re on our side, Vicar.” Strauss smirked.

“I may as well be. I’d be in just as much trouble as the director here if they caught me aiding and abetting a vampire.”

“If you were smart you would have handed me over already and claimed a tidy cash prize for it.” Strauss rolled his eyes. “None of us are wilderness trackers. We have a choice to make. Continue searching for Herr Cunningham or shift gears to a task that seems more attainable.”

“What did you have in mind?” Artemis rested her head on her hand.

“We do still need to stop Sylvain.”

“In what world is THAT more attainable?”

“I didn’t say capture. That would be a fool’s errand. I said stop. That we can do with the Van Helsing’s usual methods.”

“What do you think those methods entail?”

“We go back to basics. How does one dispose of vermin? You remove its nest and cut off its food supply. It moves along on its own accord.”

“You want us to find where she lives?”

“And who she is feeding on. If she is not getting meals from charity- and I suspect that is not her “Modus Operandi,”- she is getting them the typical vampire way. Given that she has not left a trail of bodies in her wake, that means whoever she is feeding off of is still alive, and may be a witness that can tell us who she’s planning to kill next, or where to find her.”

The vicar knit his brows in concern. “If this person or persons is indeed alive… they may be in a very delicate situation. If we don’t play this very carefully we could throw the entire investigation and potentially throw this witness into harm’s way.”

“That’s assuming the witness even exists. Are we really going to spend our time chasing hypotheticals?” Artemis asked.

“Hypothetical witnesses, versus very real lycanthropes, and neither option is particularly easy or attractive.”

“I do not care which option we pursue. But we must do something.” Strauss pushed himself up from the table. “We have already decided not to flee, and fleeing would never be a permanent solution. The hounds would be forever at our backs. That only leaves staying and trying to right the situation. Sylvain is still out there and still a very present threat not only to our own lives, but the lives of any unlucky bystander. If Troy is not able to be found, she is the only thing left on our list.”

“Even if we did capture her, Mr. Strauss, I doubt the Witchfinders will decide to spare you. Even if they were ordered not to by the Vatican. They would kill for revenge, and seek forgiveness later.”

“Then I had better get to work to save my friends before they catch up to me.”

“Alright, alright. Is there anything I can do to help in the mean time?” Vicar Martin asked tiredly.

“What you are doing now is more than enough. I will not ask you to risk your head any more than you already have. If any pertinent information comes up, will you let us know?”

“Of course. And when you do decide on a plan of action, keep me in the loop will you?” The vicar excused himself and left his guests to sort out their own problems. Artemis sighed and rested her head in her hands.

“I hate being in charge, Strauss. I don’t know what to do.”

Strauss gave her a sympathetic glance. “I did not want to discuss this in front of the vicar, but there is… another problem.”

“Yes?”

“It has been some days since I last fed. Granted, it was quite a large feed.” He smiled slightly, as if in fond remembrance of the thrill of his fangs in a Witchfinder’s neck.

“That is true. Almost a week. You must be getting hungry.”

“Quite. And my pool of donors has recently shrunk. Not to mention the loss of sterile bloodletting supplies.” He heaved a dramatic sigh and folded himself into a chair with his hand resting theatrically on his head, which was tilted back in the pantomime of fainting.

“In no time I shall waste away to nothing.”

“Or go feral and kill us all while we sit on our hands and argue over what to do.”

“Frau Harker would dispose of me first. But it is true- I need to find a feed sooner or later.”

“Well…”

“Well what?”

“I could always just. You know. Make a little cut and just…”

“Do not tempt me.” Strauss groaned. “Perhaps there is another more suitable way. Surely there must be some Witchfinder imbecile who could be convinced to step out of line. Lure him to his own grave.”

“Now it really does sound like I’m colluding with a vampire to feed him victims.” Artemis wrinkled her nose.

“Better them than you? But, stay a minute. This gives me an idea.”

“Yes?”

“Think about it. Sylvain must be finding her meals somewhere. What if I should follow in her footsteps? Seek out the source of her blood.”

“Sure, but where would we begin?”

“Think of it. Where would a hungry vampire- one smart enough not to immediately get caught- look for a target?”

“The same place any killer looks. Runaways, sex workers, homeless people I’m sure.”

“Then that is who we will ask first. The church often hosts dinners for the less fortunate of the city. Perhaps the vicar could ask among their ranks. See if anyone is willing to share. That would be an easy way to hunt for information without either of us spreading our face around town.”

“That’s true… if I know Sylvain though…”

“Yes?”

“She’s going to be picky. She wouldn’t go for just anyone, not any random addict in a gutter. She’d make it count. Strauss, when she killed Gregor White, did she give you any indication of why?”

“Yes. He was targeted specifically because she believed him to be a pedophile.”

“We need to narrow our search criteria then. I’ll start by getting a list of registered sex offenders in the city. If anyone is her blood bag, she wouldn’t feel bad about using one of them.”

Strauss grinned. “Now, there is the hunting prowess that has made the Van Helsing name strike fear into the hearts of vampires for centuries. I am glad it is finally used for me and not against me.”

“I’m glad one of us is optimistic about this.”

“In this moment, Frau Van Helsing, optimism is all that we have. Make your list. We’ve work to do.”

[redpusea]

Reconceptualising the colours in Stranger Things

Currently (I could have my mind changed in the future) my understanding is that Jane/Eleven, Will, and Mike at their core are generally associated with 1 colour each Red, Yellow, and Blue respectively

Following is an excerpt from chat GPT;

“Electromagnetic Spectrum

The electromagnetic spectrum encompasses all types of electromagnetic radiation, arranged according to their frequency or wavelength. The main categories include:

Radio Waves:

Wavelength: > 1 mm

Frequency: < 300 GHz

Uses: Communication (radio, television), astronomy, MRI

Microwaves:

Wavelength: 1 mm to 1 cm

Frequency: 300 MHz to 300 GHz

Uses: Microwave ovens, radar, satellite communication

Infrared (IR):

Wavelength: 700 nm to 1 mm

Frequency: 300 GHz to 430 THz

Uses: Remote controls, thermal imaging, night vision

Visible Light:

Wavelength: 400 nm to 700 nm

Frequency: 430 THz to 770 THz

Colors: Red (longest wavelength) to violet (shortest wavelength)

Ultraviolet Light:

Wavelength: 10 nm to 400 nm

Frequency: 750 THz to 30 PHz

Uses: Sterilization, fluorescent lamps, UV curing

X-Rays:

Wavelength: 0.01 nm to 10 nm

Frequency: 30 PHz to 30 EHz

Uses: Medical imaging, security, astronomy

Gamma Rays:

Wavelength: < 0.01 nm

Frequency: > 30 EHz

Uses: Cancer treatment, sterilization, nuclear physics”

Make of that as you will, please share your thoughts if you have any before continuing to read.

But for me I think about the full spectrum of colours we can see are obviously very limited. If we were able to perceive all of this spectrum, I image it is just purely more nuance and distinguishing between these levels. So imagine we could distinguish and our perception wasn’t so limited. Radio waves- Gamma rays represents a spectrum from red to violet (red, orange, yellow, green (maybe cyan), blue, (maybe indigo), violet… I notice that Jane has been since the start of the show associated with radio, television. I think this is giving us the key to understand the other characters like Will and Mike… Will has already been hinted at being in control of some characters in a way and I think this is also how the Mind Flayer achieved control of Will by stealing his power and using it against him. Now Mike is interesting because his colour could be UV a symbol for something beyond human perception in a way beyond sight (like emotion - “you’re the heart” OR or X-Rays a possible symbol for the ability to see through something…

what do you think?